"Project!" Miss Fullerton- my ballet teacher- shouts in a clipped voice as I balance en pointe, reaching forward with elegant, flowing arms. My face is a picture of perfection- immaculately made up, wide, expressive eyes that make it clear to everyone watching that I am not just a ballerina, I am- or at least aspire to be- a PRIMA ballerina, the ultimate expression of feminine beauty. My waist is slim, my legs- encased in soft pink tights- are long and slender, my breasts small but perfectly formed (and outlined perfectly by my spaghetti-strapped leotard), my long blonde hair scraped back into a perfect bun. Every girl in this class is looking at me with a mixture of envy and admiration.

...And it's all I can do not to scream, not to fall to the floor and bang my head into it until I either fall unconscious or dig a hole big enough to crawl in and die.

I HATE ballet. I hate the stupid costumes, I hate balancing on the tips of my toes, leaving me in pain for hours afterwards, I hate sweating in tight lycra, I hate being stared at by everyone as I struggle to remember a complicated routine. And yet... I'm not allowed the luxury of hating ballet, as I'm reminded when I finish my routine and I walk over to my mother, who is looking at me with her almost patented look of 'stern pride'.

"Kayleigh-Ann," mum says in her rhythmic Welsh accent, "you NEED to work harder at your ballet! If your teacher is telling you that you aren't projecting enough, then you need to project more from the start of your routine!"

"I know," I sigh.

"Well it doesn't look like it out there!" Mum says.

"I'll try harder next time," I say, interrupting my mother in my haste to end the conversation.

"I wish I believed that," mum sneers as we head out to her large, posh car. The second I arrive home I head immediately up to my bedroom, not even stopping to say hi to my dad. I strip out of my ballet gear and pull on a comfortable, loose t-shirt and a pair of short denim shorts, before collapsing on my bed, my fingers still twitching from the stress of the dance lesson. When I hear my mum and dad start to argue in the kitchen- the room immediately beneath my bedroom- my twitches become fully-fledged spasms. I reach for my nearest stuffed animal and bite down hard on its leg, before burying my face in my pillow and letting out a long, agony-filled scream as the arguments only get louder and louder.

My name is Kayleigh-Ann Walker, and every single bit of my life sucks.

I was born on 30th December 1999, meaning I was a disappointment to my parents from the second I was born. I was conceived at the start of April 1999 for a very special purpose- to be the first baby in the UK to be born in the year 2000. And, as my mother will frequently remind me- and anyone else nearby- I couldn't even get THAT right. My whole life was planned for me from the very start. If I was a boy, I'd have been the next David Beckham. As I'm a girl, I'm going to be the next Victoria Beckham... Whether I like it or not. At the age of 5 my parents moved from Cardiff- my hometown- to London to enroll me in the best performing arts schools money could buy. From a very young age I learned dance- not just ballet, but tap, jazz, disco, freestyle and many more types- I learned singing, acting, modelling... I still attend a 'regular' school, I still learn Maths, English, Science and ICT (which I love)... But it's been made very clear to me that I'll never use any of my 'regular' qualifications in my future career, only my performance-related ones.

I've acted in several school plays, performed in several ballet recitals, entered gymnastics tournaments and freestyle dance competitions (which I rarely win, unless you count your mother bollocking you as a prize), sang in the school choir, I'm even a cheerleader... And every time I'm out in front of a crowd I literally feel like I'm about to die, like a giant hand is going to reach down from the sky and squeeze me until I suffocate. For all my life, I knew I was abnormal to feel this way, and for all my life I thought it was because, as my mum insisted, I 'wasn't trying hard enough' or was 'deliberately trying to sabotage my chances'.

Then, two years ago, something happened that opened my eyes to the reality of my situation. A reality TV show started called 'The Angels', about a group of six women in their early twenties who were models, dancers and occasional actresses- everything I'm 'supposed to be'. What was most interesting about the girls- at least to the general public- was that one of them, a girl named Jamie-Lee, used to be a boy named James.

What was even more interesting to me, though, was that one of their associates/boyfriends was a boy named Stuart... Who used to be a girl named Claire.

I've actually met Stuart on a few occasions as he used to be the boyfriend of my dance teacher (who is herself one of these 'Angels'), and each time I see him it amazes me that this regular-looking, albeit fairly short (5' 7", the same height as me) man used to be in the same position I am right now. Living life as a girl, attending dance classes, wearing skirts and make-up... And wishing the whole time that they were a boy. I'd been aware of transgendered people from an early age, but almost always it was just a case of people born male who wished to be female... It had never occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, a girl might wish that they were a boy- and that thought was a revelation to me.

After I finish screaming, I dry my eyes and slowly stand up, walking over to my full-length mirror. Staring back at me is a cute, possibly even beautiful fifteen year old girl. I reach into the make-up drawer of my dresser and bring out my make-up removal kit, methodically cleansing my face of the gunk that has covered it ever since I woke up this morning. I untie my ballerina's bun and let my hair hang free, before scraping it back once again into a severe ponytail. I kneel down in front of my mirror, hiding my legs underneath me, and I lift my t-shirt to expose my breasts, before reaching into the back of one of my drawers for an elastic bandage that I wrap around my chest, flattening my breasts so that they're virtually invisible underneath my t-shirt. For the final touch, I clamp a red baseball cap to my head, bearing the crest of Arsenal Football Club- my favourite sports team.

"My name is not Kayleigh-Ann," I whisper to myself, lowering my head and closing my eyes. "I am NOT a girl. My name is not Kayleigh-Ann. I am NOT a girl. My name is not Kayleigh-Ann. I am NOT a girl..." I repeat my mantra over and over again, hoping, praying that when I open my eyes, I'll see a boy staring back at me, but I do eventually look at myself in the mirror, all I see is the same girl I've been for the last fifteen years. I weep with frustration and anger, before my misery is broken by a shout from downstairs.

"Kayleigh-Ann!" Mum yells. "Come down here!" I take a deep breath before untying my elastic bandage and removing my baseball cap, returning both items to the back of my drawer. I skip downstairs with all the enthusiasm I can muster- which isn't a lot, given that I know what's coming.

"What's up?" I ask.

"What took you so long to get down here?" Mum asks with an angry frown.

"Umm," I stutter. "I- I don't know..."

"I hate it when you lie to me," mum sighs, tearing my insides apart yet again.

"I- I'm sorry," I say, desperately trying not to let my mother's obvious guilt trip get the better of me. She couldn't have called me down just to complain about how long it takes me to heed her call, surely? That doesn't make ANY sense at all...

"Explain to your father why you aren't trying hard enough at ballet, Kayleigh-Ann," mum orders, staring smugly at me as I turn to face my dad.

"Well, umm," I stutter. "It- it's really hard..."

"You've been dancing for twelve years," mum spits as dad remains sat in his chair, his facial expression barely changing. "It's not THAT hard, you're just not trying enough! Or do you like wasting your father's money, which he works hard all day to earn?"

"I- I'll try harder," I mumble for the second time in as many hours.

"You'd better," mum spits, before turning her attention back to the television.

"Ca- can I go?" I ask, wincing as mum angrily nods in my direction whilst dad barely even twitches as I- his only child- slink back to my bedroom, where I once again bite down on a stuffed toy and scream into my pillow until the pain starts to subside.

Virtually every day over the last fifteen years has featured an 'encounter' of this kind. The words are always different, but the way it goes is always the same- my mum sneers at me for 'not trying hard enough', my dad barely acknowledges my existence, I slink back upstairs wishing that I was dead.

I eventually crawl under my bed sheets just after 9:30pm having not gone back downstairs at any point since my 'telling off', but my chances of getting a good night's sleep are thwarted when my bedroom doors open and dad walks in uninvited, switching on my nightlight and sitting down on the edge of my bed.

"Your mum is right, you know," dad says, making me scream internally as I roll over to face him.

"Can- can I please get some sleep?" I plead. "It's the first day of school tomorrow..."

"You should pay more attention to what your mum tells you," dad continues, having apparently ignored my plea. "We only have your best interests at heart." Bullshit, I think to myself.

"I know," I lie as dad forces a weary smile onto his face.

"Craig!" Mum yells from the adjacent bedroom.

"Um, coming!" Dad yells back. "Goodnight, Kayleigh-Ann." Almost in an instant, dad flicks off my nightlight and closes the door, once again leaving me in darkness.

"Goodnight, you useless, wimpy twat," I whisper as muffled sounds of my parents arguing filter through my bedroom wall like an obscene lullaby as I try to get to sleep. "I'm more of a man than you'll ever be..."

It's not like I hate my dad- or my mum, for that matter- I really, truly do want to love them... But it's clear that they don't love me for who I am, merely who they want me to be.

My mum is 41 years old, and for every single day of those 43 years, she's been obsessed with fame. She's always wanted to be a celebrity, to be a rich and famous actress, or dancer, or model... And every time she's tried to make a name for herself, she's failed, being told that 'her face didn't fit', 'she didn't have the talent' or, most commonly, 'her attitude wasn't right for the business'. (Shocking, eh?). My mum took every rejection she got personally, as though the entire world was conspiring to destroy her dream, so when I was born, she was determined that I would be everything she wasn't. I WOULD be rich and famous, I WOULD be an actress, a model or a dancer and I WOULD be admired the world over for my beauty and femininity... Whether I liked it or not, and as you can probably already tell, I don't like it, not one bit.

And yet, every time I try to tell my mum this, I'm ignored, or sneered at, or told how ungrateful I am for turning down all these amazing opportunities. And then, inevitably, my mother will complain- sometimes in public- that she feels yet another bout of depression coming on, and will end up bedridden for a week whilst I'm left to feel three inches tall. I can't even tell her that I'M depressed as it'll just cause her to have yet another bout of her depression, as though she was the only person in the world who ever felt miserable and I had no right to feel anything other than happiness and gratitude for the 'upbringing' she was giving me. If I were to try to tell her about 'the boy inside'... She'd probably guilt trip me to death.

And that's not an exaggeration, as on more than one occasion, I have seriously thought about throwing myself down the stairs in my home, but I've never worked up the courage to do so.

I've often thought about going to see my GP about my depression- and, more importantly, my desire to be a boy- but I know I can't as the news would inevitably get back to my mother, and the guilt trip that would ensue would almost certainly finish me off. I need to do SOMETHING, though, and soon...

My alarm wakes me up at 7am, bringing with it mixed feelings about the day ahead. Over the last six weeks I've spent virtually every waking moment in the company of my parents, but today I finally get a respite from it all- today is the first day of the new school year, more specifically, my final year of secondary school. Whilst the prospect of six hours away from my parents is very appealing, it comes at a cost.

I sigh as I open my drawer, staring at the skimpy, lace-trimmed undergarments within. I try not to think about what I'm doing as I clip my bra behind my back and step into my tight, light pink panties, but every time I bend down I feel the straps of my bra biting into my shoulders as if to say 'your name IS Kayleigh-Ann. You ARE a girl, and there's nothing you can do about it'. I grimace as I apply a light layer of make-up to my face. It's just foundation and a little mascara, virtually invisible but I know if I don't put it on, my mother will inevitably notice and yell at me for not 'keeping up appearances'. Next up are my tights, clingy and almost black, they highlight my slender legs beautifully- and drive home even harder the fact that they are girl's legs. Then comes my blouse, my tie, my blazer and finally my short, dark blue skirt.

After I brush out my hair, I stare at myself in the mirror and almost start crying.

"My name is not Kayleigh-Ann," I whisper to myself. "I am NOT a girl. My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann. I am NOT a girl..." And yet, every time I whisper the words, my face tingles from the make-up I've smeared all over it, my shoulders ache under the constant bite of the bra straps and my legs itch from the nasty, clingy tights. Even when standing still, my skirt flutters around my thighs, reminding me that there is no escape from my own personal hell. I am everything my mother wants me to be... And nothing that I myself want to be.

After eating breakfast, dad drives me to school where I breathe a light sigh of relief to finally be able to live on some of my own terms. Sure, I'm still dressed as a girl, which brings with it the 'attention' of virtually every boy in years ten and eleven, but it's easier to forget about your problems when you're not under the constant threat of your mother summoning you to her.

I don't even have any 'real' friends at school, but I'm far from unpopular. I'm on the cheerleading squad- at my mum's insistence, obviously- so I mainly hang out with them at break and at lunch, even though their talk of make-up, clothes and boys almost drives me insane. Every time they direct the group's attention toward the nearest group of boys, I find myself fantasising about them- not being the girlfriend of one of them, but being, well, just one of them. Swapping videogames, talking about sport and TV... Instead of swapping lipsticks and talking about dance and boys.

Fortunately, my actual classes go as smoothly as I'd hoped- my first lessons were Maths, History and ICT, all lessons I'm predicted at least a C in for my GCSEs. I'm not very academically gifted, but my teachers like me and I work hard in class- extra hard, in fact, as I've struggled my whole life with a mild case of dyslexia. When that was diagnosed eight years ago, it of course triggered an 'episode' from my mother, and just redoubled her efforts to turn me into a performer, because obviously- in her words- with a learning disability (no matter how mild), I'm never going to make it as anything else.

Despite the fact that I've had my uniform on for almost eight hours, I actually have a smile on my face as I leave the school gates, but that smile soon fades as I spot my mum waiting for me in her car.

"Did you enjoy your day, Kayleigh-Ann?" Mum asks as I sit down in the car, wincing as I smooth my skirt over my legs.

"Yeah, it was good," I say, internally sighing as I anticipate my mother's next question. "I got my timetable for the year as well."

"And?" Mum asks expectantly. "When are your rehearsals?"

"...Thursdays," I say, frowning as mum smiles smugly.

"Good, no point in wasting any time," mum beams. "Has Mr. Easton told you what you'll be doing yet?"

"Years 10 and 11 are doing Pygmalion," I say. "Years 7 to 9 are doing Romeo and Juliet."

"Such a shame it couldn't have been the other way around," mum sighs. "Then we might finally find you a boyfriend!" I force out a smile, but internally I wince once again as mum mentions yet another one of her obsessions- my non-existent love life.

Despite the fact that I'm still only fifteen, mum seems determined to match with any and every single attractive boy on the planet. She's even gone so far as to write fan mail to Brooklyn Beckham in my name, but no matter what she tries- or how many 'episodes' she submits to, I remain very, very single.

When I hear my school friends complain about their parents confiscating their phones for spending too much time talking to their boyfriends, it's all I can do not to laugh and scream. Most parents- most ordinary parents, most GOOD parents- would be extremely wary if their fifteen year old daughter came home and announced that she had a boyfriend, especially an older boyfriend. My parents, on the other hand, would be over the moon. Well, my mother would, anyway. Knowing my dad, he'd barely notice anything I did...

After I arrive home, I quickly head upstairs to change out of my uniform into another pair of short shorts and a t-shirt before heading downstairs to eat my very lean, very health-conscious dinner. As with most things, mum strictly controls my diet- obviously she doesn't want me being dangerously underweight, but she also wants me to stay at a very strict weight (8 1/2 stone), so literally every calorie I consume is counted.

Once I've had an opportunity to digest my dinner, I'm once again led out to mum's car for the next part of my evening- and yet another thing I've been dreading all week.

During the last couple of years, when I returned home from school, I'd usually shut myself in my bedroom, desperately trying to pretend that I wasn't a girl and that my parents weren't arguing all the time. Over the summer, though, things changed. My mother suddenly announced one day that she was concerned by my lack of school friends, so she'd gone out and found me some. I will confess that at first I was excited, thinking that finally I'd make true friends, true confidantes to whom I could open up- maybe even a proper BFF. Then I met the four girls mum had selected, and once again, my hopes were dashed.

"Have fun with your 'Angels', Kayleigh-Ann!" Mum says with a smug smile as she drops me outside the modest middle-class house where I'll be spending the next few hours. I sigh heavily as I ring the doorbell and am greeted by the face of my 'best friend'.

"Hi Kayleigh-Ann," Abbey-Gayle says in her soft Jamaican accent. "Nice shorts! Come on in, the other girls are already here." I force a smile on my face as I follow the tall, dark-skinned girl into her living room, where the other three girls are waiting for me.

"Hey girlies!" I squeak with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.

"Hi Kayleigh-Ann," Brooke- probably the most level-headed of the four girls- says, making room for me next to her on the sofa. Like the other girls, Brooke is an aspiring model, and already has professional representation despite only being sixteen. She's also a dancer, has ambitions of becoming an actress, was captain of her school's cheerleading squad... Everything my parents ever wanted in a daughter, as I'm reminded every time I see her (admittedly very pretty) face.

"Oh my god," Georgie- probably the least level-headed of the four girls- spits. "Like, are you wearing those shorts AGAIN!? Like, OMG!?"

"They're a different pair than last week," I protest as the (very unnaturally) blonde girl stares at me with blank eyes. Georgie is a semi-professional model, like Brooke, and also like Brooke, she studies at college. Unlike English literature student Brooke, however, she's studying beauty therapy... And never wastes any time in letting us know.

I've heard the stereotypes about hairdressers, of course, but every time I've had my hair and make-up professionally done (always at my mother's insistence, of course), the stylists have always been very professional, very dignified. Georgie... Is none of those things. Show her anything that requires her to concentrate for more than ten seconds and she'll immediately write it off as 'boring' or 'nerdy'. She delights in being as ignorant as humanly possible, and every second I have to hear her phoney Anglo-American accent is like someone is caving in my skull with a sledgehammer.

"Oh, leave her alone," Ella- the last of the group- says defensively, making me genuinely smile- a rarity at one of these 'get-togethers'. Out of all of the girls, Ella is probably the one I'd most like to be friends with- if only because we're both very much outsiders.

Unlike Georgie and Brooke, Ella is a full-time model, and her slender 5' 10" frame means that she's rarely out of work even though she only turned seventeen last month. Like me- or rather, my parents on my behalf- she moved to London to take advantage of the opportunities available in the capital, but unlike me, she moved from a lot further away- over ten thousand miles further, to be precise. As much as she tries to hide it, her Australian origins are very obvious every time she speaks, as is the fact that she misses her home down under.

"It's a cute look," Abbey-Gayle says, trying to 'moderate' the situation. "We oughta know, we've seen it often enough!" I try to smile as Abbey-Gayle, Brooke and Georgie giggle at my expense, before the topic of conversation changes to something that ISN'T my shorts.

As can be easily inferred, Abbey-Gayle is the unofficial 'leader' of our group. She's seventeen, a few months older than Ella, and, like the Australian girl, is also a professional model. Unlike Ella, she's signed to an agency who isn't just one of the country's top agencies, but is also the one behind the modelling clique known as 'The Angels'... And is desperate to turn the five of us into the next 'official Angel group'. A desperation that is, of course, shared by my mother.

The first day I hung out with the four girls, I returned home unconvinced that I'd be 'compatible' with the four girls and vice versa. When I explained this to my mum, however, it was explained to me in no uncertain terms that I WOULD be friends with the four girls, and that I WOULD make more of an effort to fit in with them. Rather than try to find friends with whom I'd fit in well, I was expected to fundamentally change who I was in order to fit in better with the other girls, whether I liked it or not.

"How was school, Kayleigh-Ann?" Ella asks, snapping me back to reality and thankfully steering the conversation away from my shorts.

"Ugh," Georgie spits before I have the chance to reply. "I am SO glad I don't have to go there anymore, I mean, like, hello? I'll wear my skirt shorter if I want to? Stupid teachers..."

"My school uniform was a hundred times worse," Brooke complains, apparently not noticing that Ella directed the question toward me rather than her. "We had to wear tights with skirts all year round, even in July. It just sucked, and all the teachers were arseholes too..."

"OMG, tell me about it," Georgie dramatically sighs. "I mean, hello? So what if I don't pass maths? Like, why would I need to work out the area of a rectangle anyway?" If you've moved into a house and need to know how much carpet to buy, I think to myself. Or how much paint for a wall... I look over at Ella, who shoots me a sympathetic look as Brooke and Georgie continue dominating the conversation. The two of them, along with Abbey-Gayle, were close friends long before the Australian girl or I came along. The only difference is that unlike me, Ella actually does want to be here...

I spend the next two hours slowly losing the will to live as Brooke, Georgie and Abbey-Gayle discuss fashion, make-up and their boyfriends. Ella and I occasionally manage to get a word in, but never for more than a second before the three other girls once again dominate the conversation. By the time I leave the house, it's all I can do not to scream until my throat is raw, but I can't even hint at being unhappy as mum arrives to drive myself and Ella back to our respective homes.

"Did you have fun, girls?" Mum asks.

"It was AWESOME," I say, desperately trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible to avoid mum telling me off in front of my friend.

"Good, I hope you're making more of an effort to fit in than you were before!" Mum says, making me grimace.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Walker," Ella says before I get the chance to respond. "Kayleigh-Ann here's the life of the party!" The Australian girl smiles sympathetically at me as I mouth her a silent 'thank you'.

"Well good," mum says. "I can't wait for the five of you to be signed to Joshua Benedict, then you can all start to be 'real' celebrities..." Ella and I chuckle, and before too long, we pull up outside the Australian girl's (English) grandmother's house, where I bid farewell to her with a quick, feminine hug.

"Can't stand that girl," mum spits as we drive away, momentarily shocking me.

"I kinda like her," I retort. "She's nice, she's friendly..."

"She's a phoney, Kayleigh-Ann," my mum says in a tone that makes it clear that she doesn't want to be argued with. "I mean just look at her, pretending to be shy and coy..."

"She only moved to England four months ago," I say. "She's probably still having difficulty fitting in..."

"No one who looks like that has any difficulty fitting in anywhere," mum says, anger creeping into her voice. "No, she's obviously waiting for her opportunity, her 'big break', then she won't think twice about abandoning the rest of you. You'd be much better off being best friends with Abbey-Gayle."

"Okay," I say, clenching my left hand into a fist out of sight of my mother.

When we arrive home I immediately head up to my bedroom, where I grab my favourite stuffed giraffe and bite down hard on its leg, before burying my face in my pillow and screaming until my stress starts to fade. I have tears in my eyes as I finish my homework, causing my mascara- which I hadn't wanted to wear anyway- to run, staining my cheeks and adding to my anxieties.

"My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann," I whisper to myself as I remove my make-up. "I am NOT a girl. My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann. I am NOT a girl..." I keep whispering my 'mantra' as I prepare myself for bed, eventually falling asleep with my face buried in my pillow as I try not to scream at the downward spiral my life seems to be taking.

I wake up the following morning and shiver with anger as I pull on my school uniform, as I know it won't be the worst thing I wear today- far from it, in fact.

During the second period at school, I inwardly sigh as I line up alongside twenty other girls and methodically strip off my shoes, my skirt, my tights and my blouse, before stretching a blue, spangly long-sleeved leotard over my body. Whether I like it or not- something I seem to be saying a lot nowadays- I'm a member of the school's gymnastics team, which means that for two hours each week, I have to prance around the school gymnasium covered in only a thin layer of lycra whilst my teachers and classmates watch and critique the movement of every last muscle in my body- all of which are visible under my skin-tight garment.

For once, it's actually a relief to put on my school uniform, even though it's little relief as during the lunch period, I head straight back to the changing room and strip it off again, this time changing into the tiny blue crop top and ruffled skirt of the school's cheerleading squad. This time, I'm not only observed by my teachers and my teammates, but by anyone in the school who wants to come and watch us practice. My bones start to chill and my stomach churns as I look across the field at the assembled crowd and spot that at least a third of them are boys from either years 10 or 11- boys who will no doubt fantasise about me in my uniform later tonight.

Once again, it's a relief when cheerleading practice ends and I can pull on my regular school skirt- even if it only a fraction longer than my cheerleading skirt. As I head to my final lesson- French- I can't help but once again stare at the boys and shudder at the knowledge that one or more of them may 'fantasise' about me later tonight.

It's not like I dislike boys- quite the opposite, in fact, given that I myself fantasise about being one- but their obsession with sex isn't just off-putting, it's revolting. Ever since I've had the desire to be male, I've tried repeatedly to make friends with other boys, but any friendship I make never seems to get past the fact that they're a boy, and I'm a girl, and they want me to be their girlfriend. Every. Single. Boy. Every last one of them eventually obsesses over sex and tries to decide that we're boyfriend and girlfriend instead of just friends, and every friendship always ends at that point. My habit of 'friendzoning' boys has got me a reputation in school of being frigid, a prude- a reputation I'm more than happy to live up to.

Yet again, my mum drives me home at the end of the school day- grilling me over whether or not I've been made captain of the cheerleading squad, despite the captain not being picked for another few months- and yet again, my day ends with my teeth clamped around my stuffed giraffe's leg and my face buried in my pillow in a muffled, primal scream.

As I drift off to sleep, my thoughts, as always, turn to what it must be like to be a boy, to not have the pressure of parents always demanding you be something that you're not, or to not have the pressure of fitting in with a peer group you despise, or to not go through life being ogled by anything with a penis... Or to not endure the five days of sheer misery I have waiting for me later in the month.

Thankfully, for the final day of the school week, I keep my uniform on all day, though this doesn't prevent the stares of every boy in the school from locking onto my nylon-covered legs throughout the day.

Once I arrive home, it's a relief to finally be able to shed my uniform for a week, though the relief is short-lived as I once again pull on the pink tights and tight black leotard that makes up the uniform of my ballet class. As I stretch the clingy black garment over my torso, it actually feels like it's suffocating me, squeezing me like a giant python.

"Finally!" Mum snorts as I head downstairs dressed in just my ballet uniform. "One would almost think you hated ballet... Your friend Georgie called whilst you were upstairs. They're meeting up at her house after the lesson so you'll be going home with her parents."

"What?" I ask, earning a stern stare from my mother. "Umm, I'll need to go and get some clothes, then, I'll go upstairs and get a pair of shorts-"

"Already taken care of," mum says with a smug smile. "I've put a top and a black skirt in your dance bag, you've worn shorts often enough this week. Now come on, you don't want your teacher yelling at you because you're late, do you?" Wearily, I shake my head as I follow mum out to the car, sighing as I emerge from it a few minutes later in front of the very familiar dance studio. I head inside and am greeted by Brooke and Georgie- Abbey-Gayle being in a different class and Ella still being on the waiting list for this class- before heading into the lesson.

Unlike Tuesday's lesson, today I can breathe a tiny bit easier. Sure, my teacher is still highly critical of my form, but at least mum isn't around to pile on the pressure after the lesson is over. Unfortunately, Brooke and Georgie are on hand to pile on pressure of a different kind.

"OMG, I LOVE that skirt!" Georgie squeaks as I don the black skirt mum provided for me, pulling it on over my ballet uniform as, of course, I wasn't given any underwear in my dance bag, only the skirt and top.

"Yeah, it looks so good on you, Kayleigh-Ann!" Brooke says as she pulls on her own top and miniskirt. "I don't know why you don't wear skirts more often."

"Yeah, like, free the legs!" Georgie says. Obviously, neither of them know the real reason why I prefer shorts to skirts, nor will they ever know it in case it gets back to my mum. If I owned a pair of jeans, or even regular trousers, I'd wear them instead, but the only bottoms I own that aren't either skirts, leggings or pyjamas are my shorts- so they're what I wear the most often.

"I dunno," I sigh. I briefly pause to think of something else to say, but as usual, I'm beaten to the punch by Georgie's never-ending mouth.

"Like, shorts CAN be okay with tights some of the time, but you always wear them bare-legged!" The irritating blonde girl says.

"I dunno why you're not more confident," Brooke interjects. "Maybe it's because you're still only fifteen, I dunno." Or maybe it's because you never let me get a word in edgeways, I think to myself, smirking as I half expect Georgie to call Brooke a 'nerd' or a 'swot' for being able to count as high as fifteen.

"OMG!" Georgie suddenly squeaks. "We're getting rid of a load of clothes at my house! We can, like, give you a whole new wardrobe!" Of your cast-offs? I think as the three of us get into Georgie's mother's car.

"That is such a great idea!" Brooke says. "We could have, like, a fashion show, maybe tape it and send it to an agency!"

"Will your clothes even fit me?" I ask Georgie, who in addition to being four inches shorter than me, is also noticeably a dress size larger than me.

"They'll be fine," the blonde girl says dismissively before turning back to Brooke and discussing the 'fashion show' I'm apparently going to put on later tonight. Once again, I feel my hand once again ball into a fist as the two sixteen year old girls jabber on and on, barely acknowledging the fact that I'm even in the car with them as they decide what outfits to dress me in as though I were some kind of living, breathing Barbie doll.

Sure enough, the second we arrive at Georgie's house, I have several items of clothing thrust into my hands and am ordered upstairs into Georgie's bedroom to change into them, the two girls so desperate to use me as their 'doll' they don't even bother to wait for Abbey-Gayle and Ella to arrive before beginning the 'fashion show'. I spend the next ninety minutes 'modelling' the clothes for the girls, and each new outfit just makes my stress levels grow higher and higher. I'm handed dresses, skirts, crop tops, even a couple of fashionable leotards (which I immediately reject). At no point am I handed a single pair of trousers, or even so much as a pair of shorts- it's like the only thing this girl owns is skirts and dresses.

As I head to Georgie's bedroom to change into yet another dress, though, I have an unexpected encounter, an encounter that would ultimately change my entire life. I'm simply walking along the landing toward Georgie's bedroom when one of the other doors opens, and out of it steps a young man with dark brown hair and glasses with a thin brown rim. Stunned by the man's sudden appearance, I freeze in place as he stares at me wearing one of Georgie's short black dresses whilst clutching another one in my hands.

"Georgie!" The young man yells, startling me and nearly causing me to drop the dress I'm holding. "One of your weird friends is staring at me!"

"OMG Ollie!" Georgie yells back, her voice unmuffled despite having to pass through several walls. "Stop being such a creep!"

"Sorry for being a 'creep'," Ollie says, making me giggle nervously. "I'm Ollie- well, Oliver."

"Kayleigh-Ann," I say, extending my hand, which Ollie shakes, making me giggle even more.

"Sorry about my sister," Ollie jokes as he heads into the house's spacious bathroom. "Worst day of my life was when she learned how to spell 'OMG'. The two weeks since have been absolute hell..." I giggle even more as Ollie disappears behind the bathroom door, though as I change into Georgie's latest 'offering', a thought suddenly occurs to me. If Ollie is Georgie's brother, it raises an interesting possibility- Georgie said that their house was getting rid of clothes- not she personally, but the whole household... Ollie's only a couple of inches taller than me and not a great deal wider... Maybe it won't just be Georgie who 'donates' clothes to my wardrobe tonight.

"Ugh, sorry about my brother, Kayleigh-Ann," Georgie spits as I return to the house's living room and 'model' Georgie's dress for the four girls. "Like, he is such a total NERD. I mean, OMG, all he does is spend all day in his room playing stupid videogames. I mean, he actually WANTS to be a computer person?"

"Can you believe he actually made a pass at me once?" Brooke snorts. "I mean, like I'd even look at him when I've got Andy..."

"Sad, deluded nerd," Abbey-Gayle snorts. "I mean, no offence Georgie, but how did you and he come from the same parents?" I bet Ollie asks himself the same thing on a daily basis...

The girls spend the next five minutes insulting Ollie, with even Ella getting in a few half-hearted digs at the boys expense, before I'm led into the kitchen, where the bags of clothes are laid out for me to choose from. As I predicted, at the opposite end of the kitchen table are two bags that look much more enticing than Georgie's endless supply of skirts and dresses- one of which contains a faded pair of denim jeans, the other contains a selection of t-shirts with various futuristic logos on them. The question is, how am I going to get them into my 'take home' bag without the other girls noticing? I look through Georgie's bags one more time, before something buried at the bottom of one of the bags catches my eye.

"Umm, I didn't try this on," I say, pulling the sleek blue garment out of the bag.

"Umm, Kayleigh-Ann?" Abbey-Gayle asks in a condescending voice. "That's a STRAPLESS dress. You, like, need boobs to wear it."

"I have boobs," I say, biting my tongue to keep myself from saying 'even though I wish I didn't.

"And you can't wear it over a leotard," Brooke says. "It'd just look stupid."

"...So give me some privacy and I'll take it off, then," I say, smirking as the other four girls leave me alone in the kitchen. Acting quickly, I strip off my leotard and quickly pull on the dress- which, predictably, doesn't fit properly- before grabbing the first pair of jeans and the first t-shirt I can find and stuffing them into my dance bag where they won't be seen.

"Okay," I say as I walk into the living room in the ill-fitting garment. "You may have had a point about this..."

"Whatever," Ella says dismissively. "You're only fifteen, you'll grow. And besides, it does still look kinda cute..."

"Aww, thanks!" I say, forcing a smile on my face as I pull my top back on and step out of the dress.

"Meh, you can have it anyway if you want, it's SO last season," Georgie shrugs.

"Kinda think my bag's already overflowing as it is!" I giggle. "But thank you so much for all the clothes!"

"Aww, you're, like, welcome!" Georgie giggles, jumping up and giving me a quick hug. "That's what friends are for, right?" Yeah... I think to myself. But perhaps not quite the way you intended...

With my 'fashion show' over, I get to relax for the next half an hour and pretend to listen as Georgie, Brooke and Abbey-Gayle talk about all the new clothes they'll be getting to replace the barely-worn clothes they're getting rid of. I get a lift home with Brooke's parents, and have a smile on my face as I walk through my front door, quickly heading upstairs to stash away my new clothes- especially the clothes I actually wanted to bring home with me, which I hide at the back of one of my drawers.

I just about manage to resist the urge to immediately change into the clothes, knowing that I'll have plenty of opportunities to do so soon enough, but for the first time in a very long time, my stuffed giraffe goes for an entire evening without one of its legs between my teeth.

Even as I hear mum and dad argue in the bedroom next to mine, I manage to relax and quickly get to sleep, knowing that when I wake up, the clothes will still be there, and maybe, just maybe, when I wear them and look in the mirror, I'll see the boy inside looking back at me.

I slowly wake up the following morning, taking my time as I shower before pulling on yet another pair of shorts and a loose top. Normally, on a Saturday, I'd be expected to hang out with Abbey-Gayle and the other girls, but with both Abbey-Gayle and Brooke away visiting family this weekend- and mum's reluctance to let me hang out with Ella- I have today completely free, and I know exactly how I want to spend it. Sadly, I have no choice over who I spend it with...

"Good morning, Kayleigh-Ann," mum says as I sit down at the breakfast table and stare dejectedly at my bran flakes.

"Morning," I say, desperately trying not to sigh.

"What do you have planned for today?" Mum asks.

"Nothing really," I reply. "Maybe get some homework done..." I pause, fully expecting mum to now tell me exactly what I'll be doing today.

"Well I hope you'll learn your lines as well," mum says, making me slyly nod my head. "You need to be the best Eliza Doolittle you can if you want that part, I'm not suffering through the shame of you being a background performer again!"

"...I will," I mumble as I pick at my breakfast.

"Normally I'd stay and help you rehearse," mum says. "But I have a hair and nail appointment today, I'll be out until just gone 4, and your dad won't be back from the game until gone 6, so you'll have to get your own lunch today." I perk up at this news- it's rare that I get the whole house to myself, especially at the weekend.

"Wh- what time will you be going?" I ask.

"About 11," mum says. "I've marked off what you'll be eating on your food chart, five minutes in the microwave should be enough."

"Okay," I say as a smile involuntarily creeps onto my face. Five whole hours with the house to myself? This is even better than I thought...

Sure enough, mum leaves the house just after 11, taking dad with her to drop him at the local football ground ahead of today's game. I waste no time as I head upstairs and strip off my clothes, removing my bra and replacing it with my trusty elasticated bandage. I wash off what little make-up I was wearing and scrape my hair back into a severe ponytail. I take a deep breath as I retrieve the jeans and the t-shirt from where I stashed them last night. As I step into the jeans- the first pair of long trousers I've worn in years- a rush of adrenaline flows through my body, as if my brains know that what I'm doing is so, so wrong, but my heart knows that it's so, so right. Once I've pulled on the t-shirt- and made sure that my small breasts are invisible underneath it- I clamp my beloved Arsenal hat to my head and close my eyes.

"My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann," I say confidently. "I am NOT a girl. My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann. I am NOT a girl..." I open my eyes and look in the mirror, and staring back at me is a plain- albeit cute- fifteen year old boy. I almost weep with joy as I examine my reflection. Obviously I can see the girl beneath the clothes and the hat, but if you were to show me a photo of what I'm seeing right now and tell me 'this person is a boy'... I'd believe it.

I stand up and start to walk out of my room, only to cringe as the jeans start to slide down my hips. Sure, I've seen some of the boys at school wear sagging jeans from time to time, but it's a 'trend' I'd rather avoid... Especially as it reveals my still feminine-shaped hips and waist. Thinking quickly, I head into my parents' bedroom, tiptoeing nervously across the floor even though they've gone and won't be back for a long time. I know for a fact that dad has several old leather belts that he's kept and never wears any more, it shouldn't be too hard to find them, even if I have to be careful- I've never dared steal any of my parents' clothes in the past for fear of what my mum would say if I was found out, but one belt surely can't make a difference...

I search carefully for over ten minutes, my movements so precise I feel like a soldier defusing a bomb, but I eventually locate the supply of belts. I pick out an old, barely-worn one from the back of the drawer and carefully replace the others before wrapping the belt through the loops on the jeans, tightening it just enough to keep the jeans around my waist as I walk downstairs and crash on the sofa.

For the first time in my life, everything feels just right. Everything feels the way it's supposed to be. I can forget about the pressures of school, the pressures of family, the pressures of keeping up appearances with my 'friends'. I can forget all about the pressures of simply being female, and just relax.

After an hour, my stomach starts to grumble- my Bran Flakes obviously weren't very filling, so I head over to the fridge and stare inside at the meal that's been left for me- a small pot of pasta with a very plain-looking tomato sauce. In addition to deciding what I wear, do, say, eat and even think, mum has also decided a few years ago that I was going to be a vegan just like her and dad. All of a sudden, meat, cheese, yogurt and milk chocolate completely disappeared from my diet- or so mum thinks.

As I eat my pasta (it'd be too obvious if I didn't eat it or threw it away, so I have to eat it whether I like it or not) I sigh at the bland, tasteless nature of the food, and a plan suddenly pops into my head. Mum and dad won't be back for ages, and the Kings Mall shopping centre is only a quarter of an hour away... But do I really dare go outside dressed as a boy?

If I were to leave the house and run into someone who sussed me as a boy, or worse yet, someone who knows me personally, it'd be a disaster. Mum and dad would inevitably find out, mum would probably hospitalise herself... And I don't know what I'd end up doing. On the other hand, it IS only a short walk away, and if I ate one chocolate bar, there's no way mum and dad would find out...

I weigh up the pros and cons in my mind for over fifteen minutes before realising that the more time I spend making the decision, the less time I'll have to actually carry out my 'plan'. I head upstairs and reach into my wardrobe for my grey winter coat- the only unisex coat or jacket that I own- and my most unisex pair of trainers. Once I'm fully dressed, I look in my mirror one more time, this time with my eyes wide open.

"My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann," I- and the boy in the mirror- say confidently. "I am NOT a girl." I grin as I take a £10 note out of my purse and stuff it into my pocket. Mum gives me £15 per week pocket money that I'm supposed to spend on cosmetics and clothes- god only knows how she'd react if she found out that I was spending it on very non-vegan chocolate.

As it's Saturday, the streets are relatively packed, but no one pays the blindest bit of notice as I walk the short distance to the shopping mall. I'm just another feminine-looking teenaged boy- and in 2015, that's hardly anything out of the ordinary. If anything, it's my coat- too warm for early September- and my hat, bearing the logo of a rival football team, that gets the most disapproving stares.

Once I arrive at the vast shopping mall, I make a beeline for the larges Sainsbury's store where I spend minutes browsing their vast selection of chocolate. In the end I settle for a simple bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk, which I unwrap and eat the second I leave the shop, trying not to cry as the sweet confection touches my tongue. It only takes a minute to finish off the chocolate, but I let the last crumbs linger on my tongue for as long as they can before they finally dissolve, leaving me feeling empty- as much of a 'victory' as this was, as delicious as the chocolate was, I know that this is just a one off, never to be repeated... And I walk past the large Primark shop next to the Sainsbury's, I kick myself for not bringing more money to buy more, better-fitting clothes.

As I leave the mall and prepare to head home, however, I see something that makes my blood chill.

"No," I whisper. "No, not now..." I try to look away from the person whose gaze I briefly fixed, but it's to no avail as they immediately start walking toward me, a mixture of confusion and twisted delight on their face.

"Ka-Kayleigh-Ann?" Ollie loudly announces, attracting the attention of all the nearby shoppers, who are no doubt surprised to learn that the 'boy' they just walked past was called 'Kayleigh-Ann'.

"Shhh!" I urge the bespectacled young man. "No! No! Not Kayleigh-Ann!"

"Oh," Ollie says, taken aback by the firmness of my denial. "Umm, sorry, I thought you looked like someone I knew..."

"No- Ollie, wait," I say quietly, grabbing the young man's arm and leading him into the store. "Ollie... It IS me. I- I just didn't want you shouting it to everyone in the mall."

"Wh- why are you here, dressed like that?" The young man asks. "Are those my old jeans? And my t-shirt?"

"...Yes," I sigh. "I- I kinda swiped them last night, when your sister was giving me her clothes..."

"But why?" Ollie asks as we head to the mall's food court. "You- you are a girl, right? You know these are boy's clothes?"

"Yes, I know," I say. "And yes, I- I am a girl. I... I just wish I wasn't."

"So... So, um, what?" Ollie asks. "Are you, like, a reverse crossdresser or something?"

"...Sure, let's go with that," I say sarcastically as we both order glasses of full-fat Coca-Cola.

"There's no need to be like THAT," Ollie says, making me grimace.

"Sorry, sorry," I sigh. "It's just- ugh, this'll sound silly..."

"No, go on," Ollie says. "I promise I won't tell anyone, ESPECIALLY not Georgie..."

"...I really, really wish I was a boy," I say, looking for any response in Ollie's eyes. "...Nothing? This isn't exactly a normal thing for someone to say..."

"No, I get it," Ollie says. "You were born the wrong gender, like that Jamie-Lee woman my sister's always banging on about, or that singer in Out of Heaven. Only difference is that unlike them, you were born a girl, but want to be a boy."

"...And still nothing?" I ask.

"What else is there?" Ollie asks. "Sure, it's not 'ordinary', but whatever, right? It's your life, after all." Yeah, as if, I self-pityingly think to myself. "Do your parents know about this?"

"No, and it stays that way," I say firmly. "As far as they're concerned I'm still Kayleigh-Ann, future supermodel ad ultra-girly girl."

"Have you tried telling them?" Ollie asks.

"I can't even tell them I don't like tomatoes," I sigh. "Every time I 'deviate from the path', mum decides I've made her depressed and stays in bed for days at a time, whilst dad barely knows I exist most days."

"No offence," Ollie says, "but they sound like really, really shitty parents."

"They ARE," I say. "Can't wait until I'm eighteen, then I can move out... Hell, even when I'm sixteen I'll have some more freedom..."

"Wait, wait," Ollie says. "So- so you're only fifteen?"

"Yeah, I'm sixteen at the end of December," I say. "December 30th."

"Let me guess," Ollie says. "Your parents wanted a millennial baby?"

"And I thought boys are supposed to be the LESS perceptive gender," I reply, making Ollie snort with laughter. "Why does it matter if I was fifteen or sixteen, anyway?"

"It's- gah, you're going to laugh at me now..." Ollie sighs.

"No, go on," I say. "If I can trust you with this secret, surely you can trust me with yours, right?"

"I- yesterday, I- I was planning on asking you out," Ollie says, making me sigh and let out a small chuckle. "I knew it, you're laughing at me..."

"No, not at all," I say.

"My mum and dad's been on at me for ages to find a girlfriend," Ollie explains. "Georgie's constantly taking the piss, all her friends are obnoxious, retards or obnoxious retards..."

"Bit harsh," I say. "Ella's not too bad..."

"The Australian girl?" Ollie asks. "Yeah, she's okay. She's also an inch taller than me! Don't want to go around looking like Bernie Ecclestone..."

"Trust me, there's no danger of that," I say, making Ollie giggle. "But you should ask her, I know she's single, she's not like the other girls..."

"Yeah, but-" Ollie says, before stammering.

"...Go on," I urge the nervous young boy.

"You- you're cuter," Ollie says, making me smile and suppress a giggle.

"Even dressed like this?" I ask.

"...Okay, maybe not," Ollie says, making me laugh.

"My parents are constantly having a go at me too," I say. "Trying to find me a boyfriend, an older boyfriend..."

"Well, I'm seventeen," Ollie says. "Eighteen in March, that's older, right?"

"Are you really asking out another boy?" I ask Ollie, who giggles.

"No, not at all," the young man replies. "But... How about this: you don't get to, well, 'be a boy' that often, am I right?"

"This is literally the first opportunity I've ever had," I reply.

"And you like it, right?" Ollie probes further.

"You honestly have no idea," I reply.

"Okay then," Ollie says. "So how about this- we say we're boyfriend and girlfriend, and you can come over and we can pretend we're on dates, but in reality, you're being a boy and we hang out as male friends?"

"...That's just crazy enough to work," I say, a genuine smile creeping across my face.

"So that's settled, then!" Ollie says. "As far as everyone's concerned, as of right now, we're boyfriend and girlfriend."

"But as far as WE'RE concerned," I say, "we're just two mates who enjoy hanging out together?"

"Exactly!" Ollie says, making me chuckle happily. "One thing, though- I assume that, as a boy, you wouldn't want to be called 'Kayleigh-Ann'?"

"As a GIRL I don't like being called that," I sigh, making Ollie chuckle. "I've never really thought of it, though, never thought I'd have a male 'identity' that would need naming..."

"Well, it does now," Ollie says. "What's the masculine form of Kayleigh? Kay...len? Kaylen?"

"Absolutely not," I reply. "Too chavvy. Next!"

"Umm," Ollie says. "Kay... Leigh-Ann... E-Ann..."

"Wait," I say. "E-Ann?"

"...Yes?" Ollie asks. "It's still a bit girly, isn't it?"

"Not if you pronounce it 'Ian', it isn't," I say, making Ollie smile. "Don't really want to call myself 'Ian Walker' though. Look at the hat- I'm not naming myself after a Tottenham player."

"How attached are you to the surname 'Walker'?" Ollie asks.

"Completely UNattached," I reply.

"So keep 'Ian' and drop 'Walker'," Ollie shrugs. "What else could we call you instead of Walker?"

"...Freeman," I say after a second's thought. "Because that's exactly what I am now: a free man."

"Perfect," Ollie says with a wide grin, before reaching a hand over the table toward me. "Oliver Powell. Nice to meet you."

"Ian Freeman," I say, shaking Ollie's out-stretched hand. "Likewise!"

"I can tell that this is the start of a very, very special friendship," Ollie says.

"You don't know how right you are," I say, taking my first ever breath through 'Ian's mouth.

For the first ever time in my life, I actually have something to look forward to, a light at the end of a very, very long tunnel. Even though I've only lived as a boy for less than an hour, it's already long enough for me to know that I like it, and I want more, so much more...

“I’m heading out now,” I say, grimacing in advance at the inevitable response.

“Kayleigh-Ann,” mum says in an obviously fake pained voice, “come here…” I roll my eyes, before heading into the living room and facing my mother, whose face is scrunched up in a look of pure disapproval.

“What is it?” I ask. “I don’t want to keep Ollie waiting…” I don’t want to keep Ian waiting, either, I think to myself.

“WHY are you going out with him?” Mum asks, barely restraining herself from spitting. “He’s a nerd…”

“I like him,” I say. “You wanted me to get a boyfriend, didn’t you?”

“A PROPER boyfriend,” mum retorts. “A footballer or a singer, not someone who spends all their time playing silly little games…”

“Ollie’s funny and kind,” I say. “He understands me better than anyone.” MUCH better, I think to myself.

“But he’s not POPULAR,” mum says. “If you want to be famous you need to be popular, and that won’t happen if you’re dating a nerd!”

"Mum- I- I like him," I say, silently cursing as mum holds her hand to her forehead- a sure sign that she's about to become 'depressed'.

"I need to lie down," mum says in an overly dramatic voice. "Craig, help me up the stairs..."

"Of course," dad says, jumping off the sofa the instant his name is called and leading mum up to her bedroom, but not before shooting me a VERY disapproving look. Clearly, in his eyes, I'm 100% to blame for mum's latest 'attack'.

"I'll be back just after 5," I shout after my parents, before mumbling under my breath. "Not that either of you give a shit..."

As I step out of the door, I wince as the cold autumn air hits my nylon-covered legs, though I can't help but smile at the knowledge that the tights that currently cover my legs won't be on there for long.

On the short walk to Ollie's house, I mentally 'prepare' myself. With each step I take, I leave 'Kayleigh-Ann' more and more behind me, and immerse myself more and more in the life of 'Ian'- the boy I've wanted to be my whole life.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've met up with Ollie twice, and on both occasions, I started and ended the day as a girl, but I lived the middle part as a boy- wearing the baggy jeans I 'stole' from Ollie at the start of the month, eating junk food, playing videogames and, most importantly, forgetting all about the stress and anxiety of 'Kayleigh-Ann's life. However, every time I pulled 'her' clothes back on, the stress and anxiety returned worse than ever, not least because of the nightmare that awaited me at home.

When I first told my parents that I had a boyfriend, they were ecstatic. They actually were happy- it was the first time in months that I'd seen mum smile (dad, of course, only cracked a smile after he saw that mum had 'given him permission'). When I said that he was seventeen and at college, they were over the moon.

...And then I showed them Ollie's Facebook page, on which was a picture of his obvious unathletic body, his bespectacled face and his list of interests that included videogames, model cars and Doctor Who. I was immediately ordered to break up with Ollie and get a 'proper' boyfriend, one who liked football or some other sport. My parents had decided that Ollie was the wrong boy for me even before they met him- in fact, even to this day they still haven't met him.

To make matters worse, my parents aren't the only people who disapprove of our relationship, as I'm reminded when I ring Ollie's doorbell and am greeted by my supposed fellow 'wannabe Angel', who stares at me with what would be an exasperated look if her expression wasn't so vacant.

"Ugh, you're here for, like, Ollie, aren't you?" Georgie sighs.

"Yes..." I say, frowning as Georgie dramatically rolls her eyes. "Any chance I could come in, please?"

"Like, whatever!" Georgie huffs as she steps aside and lets me head up the stairs to Ollie's room. I smile as I enter the room and the bespectacled boy stands up and approaches me, before extending his hand.

"Alright, mate?" Ollie says with a playful grin.

"Alright, mate!" I giggle in as masculine a manner as I can, shaking Ollie's hand. "Can you, um, give me a sec?"

"Sure," Ollie says, quietly exiting the room and leaving me to scrub away my make-up and exchange my trademark jean shorts and black tights for my treasured baggy jeans, a red crewneck t-shirt and my favourite baseball cap. I cough three times next to the wall (Ollie's bedroom is adjacent to the house's bathroom), and within seconds Ollie re-enters the room, laughing good-naturedly at my new look.

"Right, this make it easier to say 'alright, mate'!" Ollie laughs as he hands me an Xbox controller and we both crash onto the beanbag sofa at the foot of his bed.

"Your sister still disapproves of us," I say.

"She doesn't have the right to disapprove of anything until she learns how to spell 'disapprove'. Or any word with more than one syllable," Ollie snorts. "Don't get me wrong, I don't hate her... I just don't particularly like her that much, either."

"Bit harsh," I shrug. "She IS your sister, after all..."

"Oh, she WAS fun to be around," Ollie says. "We're only a year and a few months apart, so we used to do everything together, especially when we were at primary school... Then puberty happened."

"For you or for her?" I ask, making Ollie laugh.

"Ugh, for her," Ollie sighs. "She started puberty at around the same time Charlotte Hutchinson became famous and she just idolised her, did everything to try to be like her, including dyeing her hair blonde."

"I did wonder why you had dark brown hair when your sister was blonde and brown-eyed," I laugh.

"And as if that wasn't bad enough," Ollie sighs, "she's been telling our parents that we're up here having sex, even though you're underage... Pretty hypocritical for a girl who lost her virginity when she was fourteen."

"Fourteen!?" I ask, inadvertently raising my voice.

"Don't let her know I told you that!" Ollie hisses. "As far as our parents are concerned, she's still a virgin. She's only been sixteen for three months, for god's sake."

"Sorry, sorry," I mumble.

"And besides, we're not here to gossip," Ollie says. "Girls gossip, and- as I'm sure you'll agree- neither of us are girls. We are here to GAME."

"Indeed, neither of us are girls," I say. "My name is Ian Freeman, and I am a boy. Game on."

"Game on," Ollie concurs, starting a gaming session that lasts until late into the afternoon. Eventually, the time comes for me to once again become 'Kayleigh-Ann', making me moan with displeasure as Ollie leaves his bedroom and I reapply my make-up, before shivering as I stretch my nasty, itchy tights back up my legs. Once I'm fully female again, I cough three more times to let Ollie know he can re-enter his room.

"Until next time," Ollie says with a sad smile as I try to smile at him with my pink-coloured lips. I follow him out of the room as any boy would his best friend, but I let out a small gasp as Ollie suddenly reaches behind him and grabs my hand.

"Wh- what are you doing?" I ask, before following Ollie's eye line to where Georgie is stood outside her own bedroom, staring at us in her typical inscrutable way.

"Kiss me," Ollie whispers.

"What!?" I retort.

"She thinks you're my girlfriend," Ollie says. "Girlfriends and boyfriends kiss each other when they're about to go home." I turn my face away from Georgie so that she doesn't see me rolling my eyes, but Ollie's point is valid, and I lean into the young man's face, pressing my lips against his just long enough to satisfy Georgie's doubts (if she even has any doubts in the first place).

Before I kissed Ollie, I'd never kissed a boy before, and I'd hoped I'd never have to again, yet as I separate from the young man, I feel my heart start to beat faster, almost as though I'd enjoyed the kiss- and the reddening of Ollie's cheeks tells me that he more than enjoyed the kiss as well.

"I'll, um, see you later!" I laugh, trying not to stammer as Ollie reluctantly releases my hand.

"See you, um, Kayleigh-Ann!" Ollie giggles, before heading back into his bedroom. Before I reach the Powell's front door, I’m intercepted by Georgie, whose look of near-disgust has only intensified.

"I'm going out with your brother," I say defiantly. "Deal with it."

"Ugh, like, no?" Georgie snorts. "Like, eww!"

"What, am I not good enough for him?" I ask. I hadn't come here specifically looking for a fight with Georgie, but if she's going to insult me, I WILL respond...

"Uh, hello?" Georgie asks. "You're, like, a pavillion times too good for that nerd!"

"Wh- I'm sorry, what?" I ask.

"If you'd wanted a boyfriend, like, you could have just, you know, asked?" Georgie huffs. "You don't have to settle for Ollie just because he's pathetic and lonely, you know."

"He- he's your- that's a horrible way to talk about your brother!" I retort. "He's kind, he's sweet, he's sensitive..."

"Uh, hello?" Georgie asks again. "If you want, like, whatever you just said, you should, like, be a lesbian! Boys are supposed to be, you know, macho, and have great bodies..."

"Yeah, well I'm only fifteen," I say, a smug smile creeping onto my face. "It wouldn't be legal, or morally right for me to have sex when I'm underage, would it?" I internally sigh as my planned 'snipe' against Georgie sails straight over the blonde girl's head and she stares at me with a look of confusion on her face.

"Like, whatever," Georgie sighs. "See you Monday."

"Bye!" I say sarcastically, waving as Georgie shuts the door in my face. "Try not to trip over your own stupid fake eyelashes on your way back up the stairs..."

I have a frown on my face as I return home, the wind once again blowing against my nylon-covered legs. My frown only gets deeper as I open the front door of my house and come face to face with my father, who's staring at me with a look of utter disapproval.

"Your mother's in bed," dad says. "I hope you're proud of yourself." Ooh, look who's grown a pair, I sarcastically think to myself.

"All I did was go round to my boyfriend's," I retort. "That's not a crime."

"You took fifteen years of your mother raising you and threw it straight back in her face," dad says. "She told me to tell you that you're grounded for a week." Ah, so you didn't so much 'grow' a pair as you did borrow mum's, I think as I groan as dad's feeble attempts to discipline me.

"How is that even remotely fair?" I ask. "What does she expect me to do, just break up with Ollie because he's not enough like the meatheads mum keeps trying to push on me?"

"If your mother says a boy is appropriate for you, then he's appropriate for you," dad says. "And if she says that Ollie's inappropriate for you, then you WILL break up with him."

"I like him!" I plead as it dawns on me that if I'm grounded for a week, it'll inevitably eat into next Saturday's 'Ian time'. Even worse, if I'm grounded every time I see Ollie... 'Ian time' could get scarcer and scarcer.

"It doesn't matter what you like," dad says. "You need to do as your mum tells you. She knows what's best for you."

"Ugh, she-" I say, before flinching under dad's glare. The man may usually be utterly submissive and pathetic, but if I ever dare criticise mum in any way, he turns into a snarling, wild animal- something I'd prefer to avoid right now. "I'm going to my room. That is permitted when I'm 'grounded', isn't it?"

"Apologise to your mother!" Dad shouts after me as I stomp upstairs and, in defiance of his 'order', head straight into my room and collapse onto my bed. Seconds later, with the leg of my favourite stuffed giraffe in my mouth, I scream into my pillow, crying and yelling until all my stress is gone- or at least reduced to a (barely) tolerable level.

Once again, I find myself falling asleep to the sound of a blazing row from the adjacent bedroom, my mother having apparently recovered from her 'depression' enough to yell at dad until late into the night.

I'm woken up just after 7am by a loud banging on my bedroom door, followed by mum barging into the room uninvited, a look of pure fury on her face.

"Get out of bed!" Mum orders, watching impatiently as I throw back the covers and stand in front of her, my arms folded in a futile display of defiance. "As you're grounded, you'll be in charge of all the household chores for the next week. You can start by dusting the dining room- your grandmother's coming over to visit today." I almost smile at the news- unlike my parents, my grandmother has never shown me anything other than 100% unconditional love. Well, one of my grandmothers has, anyway...

"Grandma... Jones?" I ask, only for my heart to sink as my mother rolls her eyes at me.

"She's not going to come all the way from Cardiff just for a visit, is she?" Mum asks sarcastically. "It's your Grandma Walker who's coming over today. Now get dressed and get cleaning!"

"Yes, mum," I sigh as I head to the bathroom to shower.

"And Kayleigh-Ann?" Mum asks, causing me to stop and turn around. "You know I love you, and this is all for your own good, right?" It takes every ounce of my willpower not to roll my eyes right back at my mother, but somehow I force a smile onto my face.

"Thanks, mum," I say before showering. As Grandma Walker's coming round, I have no choice but to dress in probably my least favourite clothes of all- an old pair of white ballet tights, my Mary Jane shoes and a short, long-sleeved black dress with a Peter Pan collar. I look about seven years old once I've got the clothes on- not helped by me not wearing any make-up, the one positive thing about my attire- and I feel utterly ridiculous, but my grandmother is even more fearsome than my mother (despite her being my paternal grandmother), and I know that even the slightest lapse in my behaviour will result in a telling-off that will leave my ears ringing for days.

"Hi mum!" Dad says nervously as he answers the door for my grandmother.

"Hello Craig," grandma says in a curt voice. "Hello Angela. Hello Kayleigh-Ann, my, aren't you just a pretty little girl!" I force a smile onto my face as grandma gives my cheek a playful pinch, treating me as though I were a toddler even though I'm almost four inches taller than her.

"A little girl who thinks she can disobey her parents," mum says, causing me to wince even before I've sat down.

"What?" Grandma asks, her tone immediately turning angry. "Young lady, what have you been doing now?" I pause, waiting for mum to answer for me (as she usually does in cases like this), but when she and grandma just stand there staring at me with angry eyes, I realise that I'll have to answer her myself.

"I, um, I got a boyfriend," I stammer.

"An INAPPROPRIATE boyfriend," mum interjects before I have the chance to continue.

"Why?" Grandma asks. "What's wrong with him?" Good question, I think to myself.

"He's not even remotely her type," mum says. "He's a nerd, obsessed with silly little games and stupid space shows."

"And why did you think that he would be a good boyfriend for you, Kayleigh-Ann?" Grandma asks, dashing any hopes I had that she might take my side.

"I, um, I like him..." I mumble.

"Speak up!" Grandma commands.

"I like him," I say in a voice just barely louder than 'feeble'.

"Nonsense," grandma says. "You like the types of boy your mother and father tell you that you like." Of course I fucking do, I think as we sit down.

"Still," grandma continues, "it could be worse, at least she's not one of those awful lesbian people! I can't believe they let people like that get married, they should all be rounded up and kicked out of the country, that's what they should do to them! I didn't live through the war just to watch displays like that on the streets!" You were born in 1944, you old bag, I think, secretly biting my lip to keep myself from screaming.

Every time grandma comes over, the conversation inevitably turns to how her ultra-conservative views of the world are correct and how anyone who disagrees is fundamentally wrong. Of course, we're not told exactly WHY everyone else is wrong, we're just forced to grin and accept it. Over the summer holidays grandma actually grounded me for a week for merely mentioning Jeremy Corbyn's name. You read that right- GRANDMA grounded me. And, of course, my parents upheld the grounding, they're that scared of the old woman (dad in particular).

Of course, it's not just homosexuals and socialists that grandma hates- mum's deliberately kept it from her that I'm (supposedly) best friends with a Jamaican girl out of fear that grandma would ship me off to a nunnery, and if she found out that I was (supposedly) trying to get myself signed to a modelling agency owned by not just an immigrant, but a Nigerian immigrant, grandma would probably drop dead of a heart attack right then and there.

Grandma's biggest 'red button', however, is transgendered people- how could it have been anything else? Last year she was in hospital for a hip replacement, and she was placed on the same ward as an old lady whose granddaughter was transgendered, and naturally, grandma made it a point to make the poor girl's life a living hell every time she visited her grandmother. Every time grandma sees a newspaper article or a TV spot about Jamie-Lee Burke, or the girl from out of Heaven, her blood pressure rises to the point where I think she might actually explode.

"...Still can't believe they imprisoned that poor man, simply for making his SON wear clothes that a boy should wear!" Grandma snaps as I tune back in, my attention having wandered off during the old woman's previous rant. "If I see that CROSSDRESSER on the street I'll tan his backside so hard he won't be able to sit down for a week!" Assault on a minor, way to go, grandma... I think, my forced smile starting to waver after having to endure almost an hour of her latest tirade. She isn't saying anything we haven't already heard in previous visits, of course. Maybe she thinks that if she yells it enough, people will actually start to agree with her...

"Sit up!" Grandma suddenly snaps at me, causing me to let out a small yelp. "I thought your father was paying for ballet classes, don't they teach you posture there?"

"Sorry, grandma," I mumble, sitting up straight as grandma launches straight back into her tirade.

The old woman doesn't leave until after 3:30pm, by which point I and my parents are utterly exhausted from listening to her rants... Though that doesn't stop my mum from tearing into my dad the second the door is closed.

"When are you going to stand up to yourself?" Mum snaps, causing dad to recoil in fear. "You've let that woman walk over you your whole life, grow some backbone, for god's sake!" Yeah, god forbid someone should just roll over and do whatever their mother tells them to do, I think to myself. Obviously a real man should just roll over and do whatever his wife tells him to do... With my parents distracted, I take the opportunity to slip upstairs to my bedroom, where I exchange my juvenile attire for a loose t-shirt and a pair of shorts and try to relax on my bed, but the constant sound of my parents arguing downstairs means that my efforts are in vain, and soon I find myself on my knees in front of my mirror, baseball cap on my head and my eyes closed as I repeat the same phrase over and over again.

"My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann," I whisper to myself. "I am NOT a girl. My name IS Ian. I AM a boy. My name is not Kayleigh-Ann..."

I repeat my 'mantra' over and over for at least twenty minutes as the argument subsides, before collapsing heavily on my bed. Any chance I have of relaxing is thwarted, though, as my mum lets herself into my room mere seconds after the end of the argument.

"Whatever chore it is, I'll do it, I promise," I tiredly moan.

"Why have you changed?" Mum asks, more out of confusion than out of anger.

"The dress is stupid," I sigh. "I feel, like, five when I wear it..."

"I know your grandmother is old-fashioned," mum says, "but she means well, she only wants the best for us."

"If she had her way, the population of England would be reduced to about fifty," I snort, making mum let out a genuine laugh. As much as we clash, as much as she seems hell bent on ruining my life, there are occasions when mum and I can actually act like mother and child, and 'comparing notes' about my grandmother is probably top of that list.

"Fifty sounds a bit high, if anything," mum laughs, before her face one again turns stern. "But she is right about Ollie. He's no good for you, and you'll be better off breaking up with him now than later down the line!"

"You've never even met him!" I retort. "He ticks so many of your 'boxes', he's older, he's 'connected' through his sister..."

"He's a NERD," mum says, anger creeping back into her voice. "I guarantee you that the second you turn sixteen, he'll be demanding sex from you every minute of every day. You know what those nerd types are like." Whereas if he was a footballer, you'd be insisting that I let him 'have' me, I think to myself. "You will find another boy you like, a BETTER boy."

"Promise you won't keep banging on at me about getting a boyfriend?" I ask, making mum roll her eyes.

"As long as you at least TRY to get along with any of the boys I set you up with!" Mum says.

"Deal," I say, even though I have absolutely zero intention of keeping up my end of the bargain.

"Now come on," mum says, handing me a stack of papers that makes me groan internally. "You need to practise if you're going to get the role of Eliza!" I force a smile on my face as I follow mum downstairs, where I spend the rest of the evening either doing homework, doing chores or practising my lines until I almost start to believe that I AM Eliza Doolittle.

For the umpteenth night in a row, I fall asleep with my stuffed giraffe's leg between my teeth, muffling my screams of frustration as I clamp my pillow over my head to muffle the yells of my parents from the adjacent bedroom.

My internal scream doesn't subside as I get up the following morning and pull on the dreaded itchy black tights and short navy blue skirt that makes up my school uniform, before heading downstairs to where my mum is already waiting for me, her palm upturned and outstretched.

"Hand it over," mum orders. "You're still grounded, young lady, and you know what that means!" I sigh as I pass mum my mobile phone, which she locks with a secret code, meaning that I'll only be able to use it to call home or the emergency services- no Facebook, no text messages, no nothing... Meaning I'll have no way of communicating with Ollie for the rest of the week.

I do my usual trick of immersing myself in my work at school as a way of distracting myself from my worries, but even that has limited success as we get to lunch and, as always, I find myself stood with my 'friends' from the cheerleading squad.

"Ugh, that sucks that you got grounded simply for having a boyfriend," Maisie- my 'rival' for cheer captain- says. "I mean, Ollie sounds like a nice guy."

"He IS a bit of a nerd," I say, less out of genuine criticism and more to 'test the waters' to see how the rest of the girls respond.

"So what?" Tillie- Maisie's best friend- snorts. "Just means he has a hobby that you don't share with him."

"Yeah," Maisie interjects. "I mean, you like him, right?"

"Yeah," I respond.

"And he likes you, right?" Maisie asks, smiling as I nod. "Well then, like, so what if he's a nerd? As long as he knows to put you first, that's all you could hope for in a guy, right? Have you kissed him yet?"

"...Yes," I say in a shy voice.

"...And?" Tillie asks expectantly.

"'And'... He's okay," I shrug, making the other girls let out a collective 'ooh' that causes my cheeks to redden.

"Aww, don't be so shy!" Maisie giggles, giving me a quick hug. "I mean, you're sixteen in December, aren't you?"

"The 30th, yeah," I say.

"Soo..." Maisie asks. "Are you and Ollie going to... Well, you know?"

"We haven't talked about it," I say.

"Well don't keep him waiting too long," Tillie says. "Mine and Will's parents won't let us even be alone together until we're both sixteen, and god! That's, like, six months away..."

"Yeah," Maisie advises. "I mean, you keep him waiting too long and he'll swap you for swapping Star Wars toys with his friends!"

"Ooh," Portia- another member of the cheer squad- interjects. "Speaking of 'swapping', I got a whole stack of make-up at the weekend that I'm never going to wear, how about we have a swap meet tonight?"

"That sounds so cool!" Maisie giggles. "Kayleigh-Ann, up for a little make-up swapping?" I'd rather eat the make-up I think to myself, before I force a sad- yet somehow also smug- smile onto my face.

"I'd love to, but I'm grounded, remember?" I say.

"Ah, that sucks," Maisie sighs. "We can always wait until next week, I guess." My smug smile remains on my face as I head back to class after lunch- who'd have known that being grounded would actually have some positives?

...One of which is additional time at home for 'Ian time', even if said time will be by myself. Whilst most of 'Ian's clothes are at Ollie's house, I do keep a spare pair of jeans and a t-shirt hidden in the back of my wardrobe in case of 'emergency'. When I arrive home, however, my heart sinks when I see four familiar faces sat on my sofa- the faces belonging to Abbey-Gayle, Brooke, Georgie and Ella.

"Um, I thought I was grounded?" I say to mum, who simply flashes me a smug smile in response.

"That just means you can't go round to their houses," mum says. "It doesn't mean they can't come round here, and you need to become a part of this group if you're to be rich and famous!" Perfect, I think to myself as I force a smile on my face and sit down opposite the girls.

"Hey, Kayleigh-Ann!" Abbey-Gayle says with a smug grin. "Nice skirt!"

"Oh, leave her alone," Brooke laughs. "Like you've never worn a school uniform before!"

"Though she could, like, you know, pull it up a bit," Georgie says, irritating me within seconds by referring to me as though I wasn't even here. "Like, show some leg! As long as my STUPID brother doesn't see it!" I bite my lip to stop myself from calling Georgie a hypocrite, even though the insult would bounce right off her thick skull as there's no way she'd even know what a hypocrite was.

"Ugh," Abbey-Gayle spits. "You know, Like, Reuben actually invited Ollie along for a boy's night? Like, he's trying to make him 'part of the gang'?"

"Ewww!" Georgie over-dramatically responds. "Like, eww? I don't want him hanging out with my Marley and turning HIM into a nerd as well!"

"Or, you know, your boyfriends could have a positive effect on Ollie?" I interrupt, making Abbey-Gayle and Georgie stare at me like I'd just wet myself.

"You don't know anything about boys," Abbey-Gayle says dismissively.

"Yeah," Georgie laughs. "Or, like, you'd NEVER have gone out with Ollie!" I bite my tongue yet again as an endless string of swear words fills my brain and I feel myself getting angrier and angrier as Abbey-Gayle and Georgie continue putting Ollie down, with Brooke contributing the occasional word of encouragement. Ella remains silent throughout the 'character assassination', looking as uncomfortable as I am with the whole situation.

The girls remain at my house for another two hours before Brooke father picks them all up, finally freeing me to change out of my nasty school uniform and into a pair of comfortable shorts, but I barely get two steps up the staircase before I'm stopped by my mother.

"Your friends are right," mum says, making me scream internally. "Ollie IS wrong for you."

"I still like him, though," I retort.

"Georgie's offered to set you up with one of her boyfriend's friends," mum says. "You should break up with Ollie now and get it over with." I let out a small groan as mum takes my smartphone out of my coat pocket and unlocks it before handing it to me.

"...What, by text?" I ask, making mum scowl.

"Don't get sarcastic with me, young lady," my mother spits. "Send him a text now explaining that you don't want to be his girlfriend anymore. The sooner you end it, the sooner you can get a REAL boyfriend!" I scowl at my mother, before composing a text message to Ollie. What mum doesn't realise, though, is that the text message reads 'ignore the next text- I'm being forced to send it by mum'. I then delete the text from my 'sent' folder and compose a second text message that reads 'I'm sorry, but it'd be best if we didn't go out any more. Goodbye, K-A'. I show the sent text to my mother, who stoically nods at it before relocking my phone and stuffing it in her handbag.

"You'll have that back tomorrow morning before school," mum says. "Now go upstairs and get changed, we have lines to rehearse!" I stoically nod myself, before heading upstairs and changing into my trusty denim shorts, though I stare longingly at the baggy jeans at the back of my wardrobe and wonder when I'll ever get to wear them again...

My second school day of the week goes no better than the first- yet again, I'm forced to endure every boy at school staring at my nylon-covered legs and the company of my cheer team at break and lunch. What makes today worse, however, is what when I arrive home, I immediately march up to my bedroom and exchange my school uniform for a pair of nasty, clingy pink tights and a suffocatingly stretchy black leotard, before tying my blonde hair back into a bun, grabbing my dance bag and heading back downstairs to eat dinner, before mum ferries me to my first ballet lesson of the week- and my second encounter in as many days with Abbey-Gayle and her gang. Well, the gang minus Ella (who's still on Miss Fullerton's waiting list)- the only one I can tolerate.

An hour of dancing later- during which I'm constantly on edge thanks to my mother and my teacher's piercing gaze- I peel off my sweaty leotard and clingy tights and pull on my trusty shorts and a grey, girly t-shirt (which is still the most androgynous girl's t-shirt I own), before collapsing down onto the passenger seat of mum's car. As we drive home, however, it's obvious that something big is distracting my mother, who normally critiques my dancing all the way home (despite not having any formal dance training herself), but who today is eerily silent. When we arrive home, I immediately find out why.

"Why do you always lie to me?" Mum asks the second the front door is closed.

"I- I'm sorry?" I ask.

"Damned right you're sorry!" Mum yells, her eyes filled with a greater fury than I've ever seen. "You ungrateful, lying, selfish little shit!"

"Mu-mum?" I ask, actually quivering with fear at the older woman's rage.

"Did you really think I wouldn't know about the second message you sent to Ollie?" Mum asks. "What did it say, 'ignore the previous message'? Hmm?"

"I- I didn't send a message," I lie, though the feebleness of my voice immediately gives me away.

"STOP LYING!" Mum bellows, causing me to stumble backwards and land hard on my backside on the stairs. "Twenty pence, Kayleigh-Ann! That's how much your phone's credit went down yesterday! Enough for TWO text messages, not one! And don't try to claim you made a call, I know damned well that you didn't!"

"You- you're so paranoid about me that you check my phone's credit?" I ask, aghast that my so-called mother would stoop to such lows.

"Well it turns out I'm right not to trust you, aren't I?" Mum sneers, causing my blood to boil. "Consider yourself grounded for a month!" A month without Ollie... Or any way to contact him... Or any chance of any 'Ian time'... My mind snaps. The consequences are already as bad as they're going to get. I literally have nothing left to lose. It's time for the truth.

"You're the worst fucking mother ever!" I screech, catching my mother completely by surprise. "You don't care about me, all you care about is having some famous daughter you can show off to your friends, someone who succeeded everywhere you failed! Well guess what, quote-unquote mother: I hate ballet! I hate acting, I hate cheerleading, I hate gymnastics, I hate everything and I HATE YOU!" I almost feel guilty as the colour starts to drain from my mother's face, only to back away in fear as her rage returns, stronger than before. I actually, for a brief second, believe that she'll physically attack me as she approaches me with a look of pure hatred etched onto her face.

"You ungrateful little cunt!" Mum screams in my face, bringing tears to my eyes. "Everything we've done for you, all the time and money we spent on you, and you have the nerve to talk to me like that? I. AM. YOUR. MOTHER!"

"Then fucking well act like it instead of my slave driver!" I screech, my voice wobbling as the adrenaline thins in my blood. A second later, my resolve shatters as dad comes out of the living room, a look of confusion on his usual placid face.

"What the hell's going on?" Dad asks mum.

"Craig..." Mum says as she holds her hand up to her head- a sure giveaway that she's about to have another 'episode'.

"What the hell did you do?" Dad asks me, causing me to slowly retreat up the stairs. "Answer me!"

"I- um- I-" I stammer.

"Room! Now!" Dad bellows, and I retreat to my room, where I immediately burst into tears. Whatever I hoped to accomplish by yelling at mum, it obviously didn't work. All I know for certain is that I've made matters infinitely worse. I'll be grounded so long I'll be lucky if I'll be allowed to attend my own retirement party.

I don't know how much time passes as I cry, all I know is that with every tear I shed, I feel worse and worse. If the ground swallowed me up right now, I'd be cheering, and I don't even lift my head off the pillow as my bedroom door opens and dad comes barging in.

"Keep the noise down in here!" Dad yells, making me stare at him in disbelief. "Your mother's trying to rest and your crying's distracting her!"

"Are- are you for real?" I blub, but all dad can do is scowl at me before slamming my door shut. The next few minutes pass in a haze. I don't know whether I'm crying, screaming or yelling, I don't know if I'm stood up, sat down or sprawled out on my bed. All I know is that when I eventually regain awareness of my surroundings, my bed has been pushed in front of my bedroom door... And I'm holding a sharp pair of tailor's scissors in my hand.

In slow motion, I turn the scissors so that the point of the blade is pointing toward my wrist, and I slowly bring them down, wincing as the blade punctures the top layer of skin and a small trickle of blood begins to run down my forearm.

"No," I whisper to myself, pulling the scissors out of my arm before they can do any more damage. I look to my left, looking straight into my full length mirror at the distraught, demolished girl that I am right now.

"My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann," I whisper to myself as I kneel down in front of my mirror, my scissors still in my left hand. "I am NOT a girl. My name IS Ian Freeman. I AM a boy. My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann..." I slowly untie my ballerina's bun and let my long blonde hair hang free, before grabbing a handful of hair in my right hand. There's no possible way I can get in any more trouble than I am right now. If today is going to be the last day of my life... I want to be who I REALLY am. I sigh as I feel the scissors snap shut, before staring in near disbelief at the almost foot-long lock of hair in my right hand, and the soft tuft on my head where the hair used to be.

Twenty minutes later, there isn't a single hair left on my head that's longer than an inch. I stare at my reflection in the mirror, and for the first time in a very long while, I actually start to feel positive about the future. My new hair isn't exactly tidy, but it is short, and that's the most important thing.

"My name IS Ian Freeman," I whisper, before climbing into bed, leaving my old hair in a pile in the middle of the floor. "I AM a boy."

I wake up the following morning and smile as I run my fingers through my soft, tufty hair, before the realisation of what I've done dawns on me. Last night, I was of the opinion that things couldn't possibly get any worse. This morning, it looks like I'm going to put that to the test- not just here, but at school as well. My uniform feels even more foreign than ever as I slowly ease it on, before looking at my reflection in the mirror. I still have a 'cute' face that is unmistakably that of a girl's, even despite the hair, but if you look closely enough, my face just might, might belong to a boy. I take one last look at the discarded pile of hair on my floor before sliding my bed back to its normal position and heading downstairs, where my parents look at me with looks of pure shock on their faces.

"Morning!" I say with deliberately fake cheerfulness.

"What- what have- why- you- what- why-" mum stammers as I run my fingers through my short hair.

"Want to finish your sentence?" I ask mum, who looks like she's seen a ghost.

"What on Earth have you done to your hair!?" Dad says in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

"I cut it," I say. "Do you like it?"

"Do I-" dad says, before falling into the same state of shock as mum.

"...Do you really respect me so little that you'd mutilate yourself like this?" Mum asks in a defeated voice. "Consider yourself grounded until you're eighteen. What you do then is your problem, I don't care anymore. Craig, come on."

"Wh- where are you going?" I ask as mum and dad leave the house. "How am I meant to get to school?"

"Walk," mum coldly says, before slamming the front door and getting in dad's car, the two of them driving away without saying so much as goodbye. Whilst I'd normally be happy to see them go, this time all I feel is empty. If only I'd listened to mum, if only I'd genuinely broken up with Ollie, then I wouldn't be in this mess... However, as I look at my reflection in the mirror, I'm filled with a sense of determination. 'Ian' wouldn't simply roll over and condemn himself to a life of misery. 'Ian' would stand up for himself, he'd say the things his parents didn't want to hear and he'd make them see that they were in the wrong.

I end up catching the bus to school, barely arriving in time for form, where my new look gets a lot of attention- but mostly positive attention.

"Wow, Kayleigh-Ann!" Tillie giggles as I allow her to gently stroke my hair. "That looks so cool! Did you do it yourself?"

"Yep!" I say happily. "Like it?"

"I love it!" Tillie says. At lunch, the rest of the cheerleading team agrees with Tillie, each one taking a turn stroking my hair before photographing me for Facebook. As I can't currently access Facebook on my phone, I'm going to have to wait until I get home to find out the reaction of my so-called posse... Assuming I'll be allowed to return home at all. When the bell rings to signify the end of the school day, my mum is nowhere to be seen in the car park. I wait for ten minutes, but neither of my parents arrive, leaving me to wonder just how badly I must have offended them that they'd so brazenly abandon their parental duties.

Nervously, I reach into my pocket for my mobile phone, which is still locked from the previous day, meaning the only number I can call is home- and that's the number I dial. I gasp as the phone is answered after two rings, and the familiar Welsh accent of my mother speaks down the phone.

"Hello?" Mum asks, causing me to involuntarily gulp.

"M-mum?" I whisper.

"You know where the bus stop is," mum spits, before slamming the phone down on me and bringing tears to my eyes. I blink back the tears- 'Ian' wouldn't cry, after all- before heading to the bus stop, but I pause long before reaching the stop. If I head home, all I'll be facing is yet more grief, yet more punishment, more abuse... Though if my parents were THAT serious about grounding me, they wouldn't have left me at school to rot, would they? It may be that they're finally beginning to respect me as an independent person- but I'd clearly be a person they don't like very much. But what other option do I have? If Grandma Walker sees me with my hair, she'd try to horsewhip me through the street, call me a 'dyke' or worse. There's only one person I can turn to now.

I switch off my phone- my parents clearly don't want to talk to me, and the feeling's mutual- and head to the nearest tube station. Less than half an hour later, I'm stood in the vast concourse of London's Paddington Station, and two and a half hours (and fifty pounds of my 'cosmetics fund') later, I'm stood in front of a sign that reads 'Caerdydd Canolog'- Cardiff Central Station. It only takes another twenty minutes to walk to my ultimate destination, but I'm already exhausted, and as much as 'Ian's strength is driving me forward, I can't stop the tears that are welling in my eyes.

"Just a second," the old woman says as I wearily knock on her door. "I'll be right there..." I smile as the door opens and I stare into the warm, friendly face of my grandmother- Grandma Jones, my mother's mother- but the tears soon flow from my eyes once again. Without saying a word, Grandma wraps her arms around me and gives me a tight hug, before leading me into her living room and placing a hot, comforting cup of tea in my hands.

"Kayleigh-Ann..." Grandma whispers. "Why- why are you here? What's got you so worked up that you have to run away from home?"

"I hate my life," I whisper, making grandma hug me once again.

"Oh, now don't say that!" Grandma says. "Whatever your parents have done to you this time, it can't be that bad, surely? Did they make you get your hair cut like that?"

"No, I did this myself," I say.

"Well it looks very, very nice," grandma says. "Even if you do look a bit boyish!" So much for telling you the truth, I think as I sigh internally. As kind as she is, even Grandma Jones has her limits, and being transgendered is certainly one of them- and I can't risk losing her support.

"Thanks," I sigh. "How- how did you know I'd run away?"

"You're wearing your school uniform, for starters," Grandma says. "It's just gone 6:30, so you've obviously come straight to Cardiff from school, which means your mum didn't take you home... She must be worried sick."

"I doubt it," I spit.

"Oh, now don't say that!" Grandma says. "You know she truly does love you and care for you, right?"

"Then why does she push me too hard?" I moan. "It's like, if I'm not perfect at everything, I'm a failure in her eyes. She actually takes it personally if I'm not Eliza Doolittle, or captain of the cheerleading squad... I hate cheerleading."

"Have you actually told your mother this?" Grandma asks.

"She wouldn't listen," I moan.

"But have you told her anyway?" Grandma asks, making me look at the floor in shame.

"I may... I may have shouted it," I mumble.

"Nothing that needed saying ever needed shouting!" Grandma states in her wise, Welsh voice. "Now call your parents, let them know you're safe. You didn't tell them you were coming here, did you?"

"No," I sigh as grandma hands me her phone. "I just- I just needed someone to love me."

"Well you'll never NOT get that here, Kayleigh-Ann," grandma says, giving me another hug as I frown. Kayleigh-Ann may always be welcome in this house... I doubt that 'Ian' would be. My hands shake as I dial the London number for my parents' home, which answers after the first ring.

"Hello?" Mum asks, an air of panic in her voice. "Kayleigh-Ann? Is that you?"

"...It's me," I mumble, weeping as mum breathes an audible sigh of relief.

"Where the hell are you?" Mum yells. "Do you know how worried I am? Do you know how beside himself your father is?"

"I'm with grandma," I say.

"We'll already called your grandmother, she's worried sick too!" Mum shouts.

"I'm with Grandma JONES," I say. "In Cardiff."

"In Cardiff!?" Mum screeches, causing grandma to snatch the phone from my hands.

"Angela!" Grandma snaps in a quiet, clipped voice. "I did not raise you to talk to your offspring like that. No, I don't care what she did, if she's that upset that she's running to the other side of the country it means that you overreacted! No, you didn't run away when you were younger, because I allowed you to be your own person, I gave you a life you wouldn't want to run away from!" I smirk as my mother gets both barrels from my grandmother- the only person who can silence her. Before long, grandma hangs up the phone, and I wince slightly as I realise that both barrels are about to be turned toward me.

"Your mother tells me that you're having boy troubles, is that correct?" Grandma asks.

"The only 'trouble' I'm having with Ollie is that mum doesn't like him," I whisper.

"Has she met him?" Grandma asks.

"No!" I plead. "She's only ever seen pictures-"

"Well then she's in no position to judge, is she?" Grandma says. "Have you eaten dinner?"

"No," I say. "I, um, came straight here from school..."

"Then we'll get something from a drive-through on the way home," grandma says. "Put your coat back on- I'm driving you back to London."

"But- but it's, like, three hours to get back there," I protest. "Can't I stay here overnight?"

"And miss school tomorrow?" Grandma asks. "I think not. Put your coat on, Kayleigh-Ann."

"It'll be the middle of the night by the time you get back home," I argue, even though I know already that there's no way I'll be staying overnight at grandma's.

Sure enough, just after 10pm, I step through the front door of my London home and straight into a tight hug from my mum.

"Don't you ever dare do that to me again!" Mum screeches, before her voice calms under a withering glare from my grandmother. "Umm, uh, you should get ready for bed, um, you have school tomorrow, um... Welcome home."

"Thanks," I whisper as I head upstairs and strip off the uniform that's been on my body for almost fifteen hours. It feels so good to finally be able to peel my tights off my legs, as though they'd been suffocating, but can finally now breathe again. I rub my legs once the tights are off and wince at the feeling of small, bristly hairs covering them. Normally, like any other girl, I'd take a razor or some depilatory cream and remove the hairs, but one glance in my mirror at the short hair on my head reminds me of that which I've repeated to myself every day for months- my name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann, and I am NOT a girl.

As usual, I fall asleep to the sound of raised voices in other parts of the house, but only raised voice I can hear is that of my grandmother, and whilst it may sound like a telling off to my parents, to me it's as effective and as gentle as any lullaby. For once, my stuffed giraffe spends the night cuddled close to my chest, rather than between my teeth.

After waking up the next morning, I jump straight under the shower to wash away all of yesterday's stress, marvelling at how much quicker it is to dry my new super-short hair. For a brief, blissful moment, I can almost believe that I am indeed 'Ian'- the boy I always wanted to be- right up until I return to my room and pull on my bra and my panties, followed by the rest of my school uniform. Even this, however, doesn't keep the smile off my face as I walk downstairs to be greeted by a warm smile and a quick hug from my grandmother, who leads me to the kitchen table for breakfast.

"Kayleigh-Ann," grandma explains. "Your parents have agreed to take you and your boyfriend out for dinner tonight. They would like to meet Oliver, as would I."

"Um, but, um, tonight's my drama rehearsals," I say- even though the thought of spending the evening with Ollie (even if my parents are present) is about a million times more appealing than spending the evening pretending to be Eliza bloody Doolittle.

"Some things are more important," grandma says firmly. "And besides, your mother's agreed that the way you're feeling now, you're in no fit state to be acting, isn't that right, Angela?"

"That's right," mum says, barely hiding the disappointment in her voice.

"And besides," grandma whispers. "I saw that mark on your right wrist." The colour drains from my face as I realise what grandma's talking about- and how it must have made her feel to see it. "I trust I won't ever be seeing anything like that ever again, young lady?"

"You won't, I promise," I whisper. "I, um, I'm also in no fit state for gymnastics or cheer practice today..."

"Angela!" Grandma says. "Write a note for Kayleigh-Ann's teachers explaining that she won't be able to go to gymnastics or cheerleading today, please."

"But if she keeps missing sessions..." Mum protests, before withering under grandma's gaze. "...Fine." I let out a small giggle and give my grandmother a long hug as she laughs happily, before handing me my fully-unlocked smartphone. Grandma also drives me to school, explaining that she wants to spend as much time with me as possible whilst she's in London- not that I'm complaining, of course! I send several texts to Ollie, filling him in on the situation, before switching my phone to silent (as mandated by the school's rules) and heading into the building to yet more compliments about my hair.

When it's time for PE, I hand my teacher the note that was all but extorted from my mother, meaning that for the first time I can remember, I spend the lesson not leaping around the gymnasium in a skin-tight leotard, but instead sat at the side of the room in my uniform, finishing off homework. And it feels so, so much better. A short skirt and a pair of tights may be a pain, but they're nothing compared to having your torso encased in skin-tight lycra whilst your bare legs are exposed for all to see. Even the plain black shorts and white t-shirt worn by the girls who aren't on the gymnastics teams would be a vast improvement- especially as it's virtually identical to what the boys wear for PE.

The same applies for cheerleading practice at lunchtime. Even though I don't like to disappoint Maisie and her friends, being able to sit back and relax and watch is so, so much better than actually prancing around the field in the same short skirt and crop top as the other girls. Just a shame I won't be able to use this excuse again next week... Or for ballet tomorrow. But this one day, this one relaxing day is one of the best days I've had in a very, very long time- and it's all thanks to grandma.

It's grandma again who takes me home, escorting me up to my room the second we arrive before standing with her palm upturned and outstretched. As with mum on Monday, I know exactly what she's demanding.

"And you WON'T get these back until I can trust that you won't use them!" Grandma says as I hand her every pair of scissors in my room, along with my Stanley knife (for my pointe shoes) and my leg razor- which makes me laugh as I take off my tights and run my hand over my ever-lengthening leg hair.

"If you want to get rid of that, you can use depilatory cream like everyone else!" Grandma says. No chance of that, I think to myself with a chuckle. "Now go on, pick out a dress, you want to make a good impression on Oliver, don't you?"

"Yeah," I say as I open my closet and sigh at the display of feminine beauty inside. Every dress I own that'd be suitable for a dinner date simply screams 'girl'- as would any dress of any kind, I suppose. I eventually settle on a calf-length dress with a wide, flared skirt- not because it makes me look any prettier, but more because I can wear my trusty denim shorts underneath without them showing through the dress. It still feels awkward and uncomfortable as grandma drives me and my family to our 'date', but any feelings of discomfort leave my mind when I see Ollie for the first time in five days. I happily walk toward him, and it's all I can do not to give him a kiss right there in the middle of the restaurant- before I remember that as his supposed girlfriend, that's exactly what I'd be expected to do.

"Umm, we are supposed to kiss at this point, aren't we?" I whisper hesitantly to my 'boyfriend'.

"I think so," Ollie whispers back, before we share a quick kiss- much to the approval of my grandmother. As we sit down, I can't help but stare enviously at Ollie, dressed in his smart shirt and black trousers, and unlike my gallon of make-up, the only thing he has on his face is his smart glasses.

"Don't spend the whole of the meal ogling him," grandma teases, making me and Ollie blush.

"I, um, I do like your hair," Ollie says. "Very 'Ian'-y." I giggle happily as Ollie pays me the best compliment I could hope to receive, before we're both led to our table. For the next hour, my parents and my grandmother take turns grilling Ollie about his life, his family- including his sister, who my parents of course still adore- and his upcoming university studies. Grandma immediately adores Ollie, of course, to the point that she quickly starts calling him 'Ollie' instead of 'Oliver', and whilst I can tell from my mother's face that she's still unconvinced, by the time we leave the restaurant, even she's willing to accept that Ollie and I are a couple.

For the first time in a very long time, things in my life are looking up. Sure, I have to give Ollie another kiss as we depart, sure, my face is still covered in make-up, sure, tomorrow I'll get up and, as always, pull on my itchy school tights and short skirt, before changing in the evening into my stupid pink tights and nasty black leotard for ballet. But on the day after, on Saturday, it'll be different. I'll go round to Ollie's, scrub off all of my make-up and sit on his bed wearing the same baggy jeans and loose t-shirt every other boy wears every day of the week. And with my hair still short, I will truly be Ian, the boy I've longed to be. I'll play videogames, eat pizza and drink full-fat coke, and even better, I'll be doing this in the full knowledge that there's nothing my parents can do about it.

It's just a shame that the following Monday, I'll be right back where I started, pulling on my school skirt and school tights and being forced to be 'Kayleigh-Ann'...

Never in my life have I felt more comfortable.

I'm dressed as shabbily as I have ever been. Old, tatty jeans and a loose, long-sleeved t-shirt. I'm wearing no make-up whatsoever, and my short blonde hair is messy and unstyled. I have a paint brush in one hand and a stencil in the other, and for the first time in a very long time, I can truly forget that I was ever a girl.

"Kayleigh-Ann!" Miss Fullerton- my ballet teacher- yells, snapping me out of my fantasy. "When you're done with that wall, can you come and see me in the storage room?"

"Sure!" I reply, sighing as I stare at my pale red fingernails. As much as I try to be as male- or at the very least, as androgynous- as possible, there'll always be at least one part of me that gets dragged back to femininity.

"Hey, Kayleigh-Ann!" A voice calls from behind me, a voice belonging to a younger blonde girl who hands me a new set of stencils. "Oh my god, you are RUINING your nails! Wait there, I'll get you some gloves!"

"No, it's okay," I say. The more ruined they get, the better, I think to myself- though that's not an excuse I'll get away with saying out loud... "I'll, um, I'll probably be taken out for a makeover tomorrow anyway. It's, um, it's my birthday tomorrow..."

"Oh my god, happy birthday!" The girl squeaks. "An important one?"

"My sixteenth," I say, making the girl squeak happily.

"Oh, that is SO cool!" The blonde girl giggles. "Aww, I hope I get taken out for a makeover on my next birthday, get my nails done... Oh my god, you probably have NO idea who I am, just gabbing on like this. I'm Laura, Laura White, I joined the same class as you last month?"

"Oh, YOU'RE Laura?" I ask, smiling as Laura giggles excitedly.

"'Fraid so!" The blonde girl giggles, causing my insides to churn despite myself. Even though I didn't recognise her face, I know the name 'Laura White' well- she's the same girl who finished primary school as a boy, but started secondary school as a girl... And looking at her now, is infinitely more feminine than I ever want to be, dressed in her short denim skirt, pink hoodie and black leggings. God only knows how offended she'd be if she knew about 'Ian'...

"Though I got, like, a million different nail polishes from my grandmas for Christmas!" Laura giggles girlishly. "I'll probably still be using them by the time I'm fifty, hehe! There's just something so cool about getting your nails done professionally, though."

"Yeah," I say, half-listening as Laura continues talking to me.

"Though god only knows how my dad would react if he saw my nails," Laura says, examining her bright purple fingernails. "Hope the bastard's getting what he deserves every day in the showers."

"Your dad's in prison, right?" I ask hesitantly.

"Where he belongs," Laura says with a smug smile. "If he can't accept me as my daughter, he doesn't deserve to have any children, my brother doesn't even acknowledge him as his father anymore." Wish I had that option... I think to myself.

"Is he older?" I ask.

"Mid forties, why?" Laura replies.

"Just reminds me of my grandmother, she's really old-fashioned," I sigh. "My paternal grandmother, anyway. For Christmas she got me two Barbie dolls and a sewing kit."

"For a nearly sixteen year old girl?" Laura asks, scrunching up her face in disgust. "Still, it could be worse, she could've got you a pair of football boots and, like, a toy rifle or something, heh!" Obviously, I don't agree with Laura's definition of 'worse', but I smile in agreement anyway.

"You know, I think you may have met my grandma," I say. "Bigoted old woman, not afraid to voice her centuries-old opinions, was in hospital about two years ago for a hip replacement?"

"Ugh, her," Laura spits, before grimacing. "Oh my god, I am SO sorry, I shouldn't speak about someone's grandmother that way!"

"No, believe me, I wish you would," I sigh. "If you're not white, English, straight, cisgendered and, most importantly of all, Tory, she thinks you're the scum of the universe."

"Ugh," Laura spits again.

"The way I see it," I say hesitantly. "If you were born a boy, but you want to be a girl, then you should be a girl." I take a deep breath before continuing- obviously Laura will agree with what I just said, but what I'm about to say might be a bridge too far... "And if you were born a girl, but you want to be a boy, then you should be a boy."

"Meh, I guess," Laura shrugs. "Don't get why ANY girl would ever want to give up all this, though!" I force out a giggle as Laura does a pirouette before tossing her head back and letting her shoulder-length hair fall in front of her face. "You'll get what I mean when your hair grows back!" Trust me, I won't, I self-pityingly think to myself as Laura and I head toward the dance studio's storage room, where our teacher is organising her costume rack.

"Oh, hey girls!" Miss Fullerton says with a smile. "Or should I say 'girlies'?"

"What's up?" I ask, instinctively reaching to give the tall blonde woman assistance in putting away her costume rack.

"Don't- don't put that away just yet," Miss Fullerton says with a sly grin.

"Ooh, I think I know what THIS is," Laura giggles.

"...What?" I ask.

"I never thought it was fair, people having their birthdays so close to Christmas," Miss Fullerton explains. "Even though it means you'll never be at school on your birthday, it also means you'll never be at MY school, and will never get to wear one of these!" I look on in horror as Miss Fullerton produces a wide, frilly pink tutu.

"Pity," I say, trying to disguise the sarcasm in my voice.

"Isn't it?" Miss Fullerton asks. "How fortunate, then, that you're in my school today, and this tutu is just begging to be worn by a birthday girl..." Oh no, I think to myself. No, no, no...

"I'm covered in paint," I argue. "I don't have my pointe shoes with me, I don't have any tights..." I sigh as Miss Fullerton throws me a towel.

"Wipe yourself down with that, I can always wash it later," Miss Fullerton says. "And I've always got spare pairs of tights and a spare pair of soft shoes for you. And it's hardly fair that you don't get to enjoy the same birthday treats as the other girls, especially as it's your sixteenth tomorrow."

"Yeah," Laura laughs. "Come on, Kayleigh-Ann!" I internally scream as Miss Fullerton hands me a pair of new pink ballet tights and a pair of soft dance slippers in my size and all but frog marches me to the new changing room. A few minutes later, I emerge from the room with the tights on my legs, the tutu covering my body and my jeans and t-shirt in a crumpled mess on the changing room floor. I force a smile on my face as Miss Fullerton 'crowns' me with a sparkly silver tiara, before posing for the assembled handful of girls and dancing a two-minute long routine, at the end of which I immediately return to the changing room to pull on my street clothes. Once I'm again dressed the way I want, I rest my forehead on the cold, tiled wall of the room and let out a long, frustrated moan.

"Shit!" I yell, fidgeting as my bra strap digs into my shoulder. Of all the clothes that I would want to wear, a fluffy pink tutu and pink tights would be dead last on the list. After composing myself, I head out into the reception area of the dance studio to find Laura staring at me with concern in her eyes.

"You okay, Kayleigh-Ann?" The young teenager asks. "You sounded kinda angry in there..."

"You- you heard that?" I ask, tensing up as Laura nods. "I, um, I just kicked myself over cocking up the steps..."

"Huh, they looked okay to me," Laura shrugs, before giggling as she sees Ollie waiting outside in his car. "Anyway, I'll let you get off, so happy birthday for tomorrow! God, I can't wait until I'm sixteen..."

"Yeah, I'm not planning on jumping into bed with my boyfriend on the stroke of midnight," I snort.

"No, not because of THAT," Laura says, rolling her eyes. "When I'm sixteen I can finally get prescribed full oestrogen, rather than this kid's dose I'm taking at the moment."

"Prescribed... From a doctor?" I ask, wincing as Laura rolls her eyes again.

"Well, duh, who else is going to prescribe it?" Laura giggles. "Looks like my mum's here so I've got to go. See you at class next year, Kayleigh-Ann!"

"Yeah, see you Laura," I say as I head out to Ollie's car, giving the bespectacled boy a kiss just in case anyone's watching.

"New friend?" Ollie asks.

"Yeah," I say. "She's the one I was telling you about a while back, the girl who used to be a boy..."

"Oh, cool, so another transgendered person you can confide in?" Ollie asks.

"If only," I sigh. "She's not so much 'pro-transsexual' as she is 'pro-girl'. Which is understandable, I guess..."

"I'm still amazed I'm the only person who knows about Ian," Ollie muses. "And even then I only found out by accident... You'd probably go through your whole life hiding the 'real you' from everyone, especially people who'd be understanding of it, like the transgendered girl you're talking about. You need to be more trusting."

"Yeah," I snort sarcastically. "And then I tell the wrong person once, just once, and it gets back to my parents and my grandmother, and all of a sudden I'm out on my arse with no support except for my own fantasy of becoming a boy."

"You'd have the support of your friends," Ollie says. "And you're sixteen tomorrow, it's not like you can't be independent if you want to. You need to- and I know the irony of this saying- you need to, well, grow a pair."

"...Thanks," I sigh. A few minutes later, Ollie pulls up outside my posh, middle-class house and I slide out of the passenger seat, giving Ollie a kiss first just in case my parents are watching from the living room window- a fear that turns out to be well-founded when I enter the house and spot both parents sat on the sofa with a perfect view of the window and the street outside.

"Hello, Kayleigh-Ann," mum says in a suspicious, eerily calm voice. "Could you go and get changed? We need to have a talk." Ah shit, I think to myself. What have I done now?

I nod and head upstairs, sighing as I exchange my comfortable jeans and t-shirt for a clingy, itchy pair of black tights and a new pair of denim shorts I bought for myself with my Christmas money (the only clothes I was actually given as Christmas presents were, of course, skirts and dresses), before pulling on a tight, long-sleeved top. Despite my short hair, when I stare in the mirror, there's no questioning the gender of the reflection staring back at me.

"My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann," I whisper to myself as I rest my forehead on the mirror and try to forget about the tight, uncomfortable nature of my clothes. "I Am NOT a girl. My name IS Ian Freeman, I AM a boy..." I let out a long sigh and head into the bathroom to wash a few stray flakes of paint off of my hands and my face, before heading downstairs and sitting down opposite my parents.

"Kayleigh-Ann," mum says. "Tomorrow is your sixteenth birthday, and I'm sure you know that that means there will be certain... 'Things' you'll legally be allowed to do tomorrow that you aren't allowed to do today." I stare at mum as she speaks, though I keep glancing over at dad as well- is mum really having the 'sex talk' with him in the room, and is he such a wuss that he's just going to sit there in silence?

"Yes, I know what you're talking about," I say.

"What I'm trying to say," mum says more firmly, "is that just because you'll be, well, legal, and just because Ollie's older than you, it doesn't mean that you should, you know, 'take advantage' or your age at the first opportunity you get."

"I won't, I promise," I say truthfully, though inwardly I scream at the woman's sheer hypocrisy. When she was setting me up with her friends' sons, all of whom were footballers or actors, mum would constantly encourage me to 'do whatever it takes to make them like me'- and it was obvious what she meant by 'whatever'. With Ollie, she actually threatened to have him charged with statutory rape if he so much as touched me the wrong way before my sixteenth birthday.

"I- I believe you, Kayleigh-Ann," mum says with a clearly forced smile. Ever since grandma's 'intervention' a few months ago, mum's been noticeably more tolerant of my choices and more willing to believe what I say, making life at home noticeably less tense. I, of course, had to earn this trust by redoubling my efforts at ballet... And on the cheerleading team, and the drama club, and the gymnastics team.

However, it's a price that's ultimately worth paying as I head to bed for the fourth night in a row with a smile on my face and my favourite toy giraffe cuddled close to my chest rather than lodged between my teeth.

"My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann," I whisper to myself as I close my eyes and try to get to sleep. "I am NOT a girl. My name IS Ian Freeman. I AM a boy. And you, Melman," I whisper to the stuffed toy, "are the only man who will EVER share my bed!"

I smile as I walk down the long street in my comfortable jeans and warm, snuggly sweatshirt, my short hair blowing in the gentle breeze as people walk around me, the random flashes of their cameras momentarily blinding me with every picture they take.

"Hey, stop it," I sleepily mumble as the sound of the camera grows ever louder, and the flashes ever brighter, eventually blacking out my vision entirely...

I groan as I roll over in bed and slowly open my eyes to the sound of camera shutters and the sight of camera flashes- and the presence of four unexpected and uninvited people in my bedroom.

"Happy birthday!" Abbey-Gayle yells, snapping me out of my slumber with a jolt.

"Happy birthday!" Brooke, Georgie and Ella also yell, before all four girls smother me with tight hugs.

"Oh my- what- why- what are you all doing here!?" I ask, my voice a mixture of surprise and panic.

"What, you need to ask?" Abbey-Gayle laughs, pointing to the corner of my room where a large pile of presents rests underneath four silver balloons- two in the shape of the letters 'K' And 'A', and two in the shape of the numbers '1' and '6'.

"We're, like, Angels!" Georgie giggles. "Angels spoil each other on their birthdays like, like, sisters!"

"And no pressure, but it's mine in five weeks," Brooke says as she whips off my covers. "Now come on! Presents!"

"Do- do my parents know you're here?" I tiredly ask as I'm all but dragged over to my present pile.

"It was their idea!" Ella laughs. "They're so cool, they're so behind the idea that the five of us are gonna be Angels... You're so lucky to live with them, Kayleigh-Ann." 'Lucky' isn't the word I'd use, I think to myself.

"And lucky that you've got four awesome friends who know EXACTLY what you want for your birthday!" Abbey-Gayle giggles as she thrusts my first present into my hand.

Predictably, 'lucky' isn't the word I'd use their either, as each gift I unwrap contains one feminine delight after another- nail polish, make-up, hair accessories, even some underwear that's considerably more 'intimate' than I'd ever wear, and comes with a warning from Georgie not to let Ollie see me wearing it. Which is something that I can safely say will never happen- I don't even want to see myself wearing it.

After thanking all the girls with tight hugs, I pull on my dressing gown and head downstairs, followed by all four girls (who each take one of my balloons). When I arrive in the living room, I sigh at the sight of my proud parents standing next to yet another massive pile of presents. The sigh is a happy one, as the pile truly is massive- bigger than I've ever seen on any of my previous birthdays- but it's also sad, as I know instinctively what will be inside the presents.

"Hello girls!" Mum says to my four friends, before turning her attention to me. "Happy birthday, my sixteen year old Angel!"

"Thanks, mum," I say as she gives me a tight hug.

"Though of course," mum says, "your birthday SHOULD be two days from now..." Every year, I think to myself. You'll never forgive me for not being born on January 1st 2000...

"Go on," dad says with a warm smile. "What are you waiting for?" With my parents watching on and my friends recording everything on their cameraphones, I dive into my pile of presents... And as I predicted, all my presents scream 'femininity'.

I've got new dresses, new skirts, new shoes, a new ballet leotard, make-up, jewellery, nail polish, dancing and acting books... And I want to hurl all of it, every last bit of it, on a fire. Once my last gift is opened, I'm sent upstairs to change into one of my new dresses- an admittedly cute one with a flared knee-length skirt and a square neck. With a face full of my new make-up, my feet encased in new shoes with a 3 inch heel and my fancy new jewellery, I look every bit the attractive young woman, despite my short hair.

Every second I spend looking at my reflection in the mirror causes my tension levels to grow higher and higher, to the extent that I just want to tear the dress from my body, along with my skin and every other part of me until there's nothing left. Instinctively, I reach for my stuffed giraffe, but I stop myself before putting its leg between my teeth. I've gone four days without the need for a 'release', if I can just get through today, I'll be seeing Ollie tomorrow, and I’ll be able to have some 'Ian' time...

"You'll want to wear tights with that dress, Kayleigh-Ann," Abbey-Gayle advises as I slowly stride down the stairs, unsteady in my heels.

"Why, exactly?" I ask, desperate not to wear the nasty, clingy leg coverings.

"Well, because your legs will get cold when we go out, duh!" The dark-skinned girl retorts, making me inwardly scream yet again. Go out? No one said anything about going out...

"She can change before she goes out," mum says, ushering me onto the sofa between my four friends. "I want to get a few pictures first, my little girl- well, my growing woman, I suppose- with her four friends!" I force a smile on my face as mum takes picture after picture of me in my dress and my make-up, though with every photo, the smile becomes more and more forced to the extent that it quickly becomes a grimace.

Just before lunch, I'm ordered upstairs to pull on my tights- another experience that nearly causes my giraffe's leg to disappear between my teeth- before being escorted out to a waiting taxi by my four friends. After a quick lunch, I'm taken to a salon, where my make-up is removed and reapplied professionally whilst my hair is styled to make it as feminine as it can be. By the time I arrive home just after 3:30pm, my journey from androgynous girl to beauty queen is complete... And with every step I take in my accursed shoes, I feel like I'm going to explode, as though each heel contained a land mine.

Just when I feel things can't get any worse, when I step out of the taxi, I'm greeted by a sight I'd hoped to avoid this year- the sight of my paternal grandmother's car parked outside our house. I take a deep breath before letting myself into the house- sure, grandma's always treated me as a little girl in the past, but things are different now. I'm sixteen, part-way toward becoming an adult, she surely has to recognise that...

"Hi, grandma!" I say with a warm smile, only for my smile to turn into a grimace as grandma regards me with a cold stare.

"What do you think you're doing wearing that much make-up, girl?" Grandma spits. "You look like a whore. Go upstairs and wash it off, now! And change into something more appropriate for your age!" Funny way of saying 'happy birthday', I think to myself as I feel my toes curl inside my shoes.

"Now Elaine," mum says cautiously. "She IS sixteen..."

"That's still a child," grandma says with an air of pompous arrogance that screams 'don't you dare argue with me'- and naturally, neither mum nor dad are going to dare argue. "Do you think it's appropriate for a CHILD to walk around looking like a whore?" My dress shows off less skin than yours, you old bag, I think to myself.

"Kayleigh-Ann," dad feebly mumbles. "Maybe- maybe you should go upstairs..."

"I'm going," I say, desperately trying to conceal the tired sigh in my voice. Sure enough, when I walk downstairs tem minutes later, my face has been scrubbed clean of make-up and I'm wearing my long-sleeved black dress, opaque white tights and my Mary Janes.

"There now," grandma says with a smug smile as she pinches my cheek. "Don't you look so much better? I hope you're ready for some more presents!"

"Of course!" I say with a forced smile. As bad as my presents have been so far, I know for a fact that grandma's are going to be infinitely worse- and within seconds of tearing the wrapping paper off my first present, I'm proved right.

In addition to two new Barbie dolls- which no one I know ever played with after the age of twelve- I have a new, frilly pink dress that almost makes my brain explode when I see it, as I know that I'll have to wear this dress every time grandma comes to visit in the future. The one barely acceptable present I have is a £50 gift voucher for a local clothing store, but even then I'll only be able to spend it on 'grandma-approved' clothes- and certainly nothing that a boy would wear.

After thanking grandma with a hug and a kiss on her cheek- as I'm forced to do every birthday- I sit down and patiently listen to her rant about everything she perceives as wrong with the world- which as always features immigrants, Muslims, LGBT people and, of course, Jeremy Corbyn as the main culprits. After ninety minutes, the old woman thankfully leaves- but not before I'm forced to thank her yet again for the presents I'd quite happily throw on the fire with the rest of my presents. I breathe a loud sigh of relief as the front door shuts behind the old woman, though even this action causes me to flinch as I feel my parents' presence looming behind me.

"Kayleigh-Ann," mum says sternly. "...Go and get changed into your shorts." I breathe another sigh of relief at mum's 'command'- she and grandma have never got along, which is one of very few things I have in common with my mother.

"Mum..." I say as I slowly walk up the stairs. "Why do we have to live in 1945, just because she's incapable of living in 2015?"

"That's no way to talk about your grandmother," mum retorts, her tone of voice making it clear that I've stepped over a line. "You should respect her."

"...I'm not wrong, am I?" I ask.

"No," mum concedes in a hushed tone. "No you're not. But she is your grandmother, and as long as you're her granddaughter, you will respect her. Now go and get changed." I nod and head upstairs, and the second I enter my bedroom, I reach for my giraffe toy and stick its leg between my teeth, screaming until my jaw is sore and I'm blue in the face. I happily strip off my dress and tights and pull on my trusty shorts, also pulling on one of Ollie's old t-shirts and my Arsenal baseball cap.

"My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann," I whisper to myself, drying the tears from my eyes. "I am NOT a girl. My name IS Ian Freeman. I AM a boy. I am NOT that old hag's granddaughter, I AM her grandson. My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann..."

After fifteen minutes of my 'mantra', I change into one of the new tops I got today, before heading downstairs for my (obviously, vegan and organic) birthday meal, before heading to bed just after 10:30pm. Literally every second of my sixteenth birthday has been a total disaster, and once again, my giraffe toy's leg ends up jammed between my teeth as I try to sleep. However, my screams fade much quicker than they did earlier in the afternoon, as I know that whilst today sucked, tomorrow will be much better, thanks to two men- Ollie, and 'Ian'.

I wake up at 7:30am on New Year's Eve, I'm that eager to get out and get around to Ollie's house. I wear as little make-up as I think I can get away with, before pulling on my usual outfit of tights, shorts and top- knowing that I won't be wearing these clothes for long.

"Have fun at Ollie's, Kayleigh-Ann," mum yells after me as I leave the house.

"Thanks," I reply, a genuine smile forming on my face.

"Just remember what we talked about!" Mum yells loud enough to be heard from the street.

"I will," I reply as I head to the nearest underground station. Not long afterward, I'm stood outside the house of my 'boyfriend', who greets me himself as I step through the front door.

"Hey, Kayleigh-Ann," Ollie says, awkwardly giving me a kiss as his parents and his sister look on. "Did you have a good birthday yesterday?"

"Like, OMG, it was the best birthday ever!" Georgie says, interrupting me before I can speak. "We got our hair done, we got makeovers..."

"Which one of you had a birthday yesterday, again?" Ollie asks, making his parents snicker at their daughter's expense.

"OMG, what-ever!" George snorts.

"It was a good day," I say. "Thanks for everything yesterday, Georgie."

"Aww!" Georgie giggles, giving me a tight hug (and shoving her brother out of the way to do so). "Can't wait for my birthday in June!"

"I assume you two will be wanting to go upstairs now?" Ollie & Georgie's dad says with a concerned look on his face.

"We will, Mr. Powell," I say.

"Well- you kids have fun," Mr. Powell responds as I and Ollie head upstairs, hand-in-hand- though he releases my hand the second I step through his bedroom door.

"Ugh," I spit as I slump down on his bed.

"Take it yesterday wasn't as good as you said?" Ollie asks.

"Every birthday's just getting worse and worse," I moan. "I swear, I am going to go mental if this keeps up..."

"Well I'll give you some space to do something to make it better," Ollie chuckles, leaving the room. I take a long, deep breath before stripping off my shorts, top and tights and pulling on the jeans and t-shirt provided for me. I cough loudly to let Ollie know he can re-enter the room, and he greets me with our now-traditional fist bump before handing me a videogame controller and heavily laying down on his bed.

"Alright mate?" Ollie asks with a laugh as I also heavily lay down on his bed.

"Alright!" I laugh.

"Probably not a good idea to crash on the bed like that," Ollie sighs. "You know what dad was thinking when he said 'have fun'..."

"Well, there's no danger of THAT happening," I say smugly. "Now game on."

"Game on," Ollie says, and I relax as the game loads and I while away the next four hours blasting away at aliens, eating pizza and drinking full-fat coke. As always, though, the time comes for me to step out of my 'fantasy' and return to reality, and as always, when I'm pulling 'Kayleigh-Ann's clothes back on, I feel the scream building and building within me.

Fortunately, Ollie drives me home, so I don't have to face the indignity of kissing him in front of his sister, but when we arrive back at my home, the presence of my parents in the living room mean that once again, my lips lock with Ollie's. After a few second, though, I feel his hand start to wander onto my belly, before slowly creeping underneath my shirt...

"Mmph!" I yell, quickly reaching a state of utter panic. "What the fuck are you doing, Ollie?"

"I- I'm sorry," Ollie says, confused by my reaction. "Didn't you like that?"

"No, I didn't fucking well like it!" I spit.

"You're sixteen now," Ollie says. "Your parents are going to expect you- to expect us- to become sexually active now that you're legal."

"Well they can expect whatever they want to expect," I say, lowering my top and fidgeting from discomfort. "As far as we're concerned, we kiss only to keep up appearances, and as far as you're concerned, any part of my body that can take 'lady' on the front is off-limits, okay?"

"Umm, okay, I guess," Ollie says.

"I'll see you later," I say, exiting the car and taking several deep breaths to clear my head. Ollie isn't wrong in what he says, obviously- all of my friends, both at school and in Abbey-Gayle's gang, are sexually active, and they'll expect me to be the same way, but for Ollie to act the way he did really makes me question whether or not I picked the right 'confidante'.

I collapse heavily on the sofa as I walk through the front door, barely paying attention as mum sits down in a chair opposite me.

"Your friend Abbey-Gayle called while you were out," mum says. "She's hosting a New Year's Eve party, and it'd be good if you could go to it."

"I'm exhausted," I moan.

"Nonetheless, you should go," mum says, making it clear to me that I WILL be attending the party tonight. "There will be plenty of attractive young men there..."

"I've already got a boyfriend," I say, even as the memory of Ollie's 'advance' makes me shiver.

"You never know, you might find a better one at the party," mum says. "I'll take you to the party at 9pm. Make sure you're wearing something a bit better than those shorts, Kayleigh-Ann."

"Will do," I sigh.

"And Kayleigh-Ann?" Mum asks in a concerned tone.

"...Yes?" I reply, confused by her sudden mood change.

"Abbey-Gayle will probably be serving alcohol at the party," mum says.

"I doubt it, she's only seventeen herself," I reply.

"Well she is mature for her age," mum retorts, making me internally roll my eyes. "Just make sure you take care of yourself, try not to drink TOO much." I nod, even though I have no intention of drinking anything tonight.

Nonetheless, at precisely 9:05pm, I find myself stood in Abbey-Gayle's packed front room wearing a short, fashionable dress and thick make-up, and clutching a bottle filled with a strong-smelling alcoholic drink in my left hand.

"Oh my god!" Brooke yells in my ear, and it's almost as though I can hear the alcohol on her breath. "I am SO wasted already!" That's because you're also only sixteen, and even smaller than I am, I think to myself. I turn around to face Brooke, who's accompanied by Georgie and both their boyfriends, and I can't help but snort- their boyfriends are here, but mine obviously didn't get an invitation... Not that that's entirely a bad thing, considering what happened earlier today.

"Like, this is SO an awesome party!" Georgie giggles as she takes a sip of her drink, whilst her boyfriend grabs a generous handful of her left buttock. I almost envy Georgie, the way she's comfortable around her boyfriend, the way she's comfortable being mauled like a piece of meat... Things would be so much easier if I was just able to accept who I was- but I know I'll never be able to do that. No as long as I'm wearing a dress, anyway...

"I know!" I say, taking a long, deep swig of my drink. Maybe if I'm drunk, I might enjoy the situation more...

"Take it easy with the drink, Kayleigh-Ann!" Brooke giggles. "You just turned sixteen, you don't want to get TOO wasted- not yet, anyway!" Brooke giggles drunkenly as Andrew- her boyfriend, and the younger brother of reality TV star Viks Brooks- playfully nibbles at her neck. Not wanting to be shown up, Georgie practically forces her neck into the mouth of her boyfriend Marley- who is also the younger brother of a reality TV star, in this case, our dance teacher Krystie.

I have no doubt whatsoever that neither Brooke or Georgie would have looked twice at either Andrew or Marley if they weren't related to someone famous- neither of them are especially good-looking, Andrew is at least a stone overweight whilst Marley stands six feet two inches tall (not counting his ridiculous quiff), and as such towers over Georgie, even when she's wearing her suicidially high heeled shoes. Nonetheless, both girls have professed their undying love for the two young men, both of whom were only too happy to accept.

"I think we're making Kayleigh-Ann jealous!" Brooke giggles, shaking herself free of Andrew's clutches. "Go and get us some drinks, boys?" Georgie and Brooke giggle as the boys march off, returning a little while later with more bottles of drinks, which Brooke, Georgie and I quickly down, leaving me feeling very unsteady on my feet.

"OMG, let's dance!" Georgie drunkenly giggles, grabbing Marley's hand and dragging him onto the dancefloor whilst gesturing that Brooke, Andrew and I should join her. However, after only my second drink, dancing is the absolute last thing I want to do right now.

"Umm, I think Kayleigh-Ann's doesn't feel like dancing," Brooke says with a sympathetic giggle, leading me away from the noise and the crowd to a quiet area of the room. "Andrew, get us a glass of tap water, would you?" The dark-haired young man nods as I sit down with Brooke's assistance and several deep breaths to try to clear my head.

"I told you to take it easy with the drink," Brooke chuckles, the alcohol clearly affecting her own mood.

"I know," I sigh, prompting a sad smile from the brown-haired girl.

"Missing Ollie?" Brooke asks, and after a few seconds' worth of jumbled thoughts, I nod.

"So unfair that your boyfriends are here and he isn't," I sigh.

"It's Abbey-Gayle's party, she invites who she wants," Brooke shrugs. "She'll get to like Ollie eventually."

"Yeah, but will she get to like Ian?" I think to myself.

"Who- who's Ian?" Brooke asks. Shit, I think. Did I just say that out loud?

"Umm..." I mumble. Damned alcohol...

"Kayleigh-Ann..." Brooke asks with concern in her voice. "Have- have you been sneaking around behind Ollie's back?"

"Umm..." I say, my panic building. Obviously, I can't tell Brooke who Ian REALLY is... And it's not like I'm cheating on Ollie as, well, it's not like I'm really dating him... A little white lie here couldn't hurt, right?

"Promise you won't tell Georgie?" I plead.

"Oh my god!" Brooke spits. "Who even is he!?"

"...One of Ollie's friends," I mumble.

"Oh. My. God!" Brooke says with a voice of utter contempt. "Kayleigh-Ann, you seriously know NOTHING about boys!" Yeah, keep thinking that, I think.

"Leave me alone," I moan.

"Well- ugh," Brooke sighs. "When it blows up in your face, don't say I didn't tell you so."

"Please promise you won't tell Georgie?" I repeat. "You know how annoying she can be..." Ah shit, I think with a grimace. I said that out loud too...

"Oh believe me, I know," Brooke giggles. "And I promise I won't tell Georgie about ANYTHING you just said. You have my word." I smile as Brooke gives me a quick hug and Andrew returns with a much-needed glass of water, which helps to clear my head and settle my very upset stomach. Nonetheless, I still feel like shit as the clock strikes midnight, symbolising the start of the New Year, and virtually everyone present turns to their significant other and gives them a long, deep kiss. Whilst I'm not envious of the kissing, it does serve to remind me of just how much I don't belong- not just to my social group, but to my entire gender.

Ninety minutes and three more alcoholic drinks later, I'm bundled into a taxi and dropped off back at my home, where I stumble straight to bed and quickly fall into a deep sleep, trying desperately to forget all about the party- especially my accidental 'outing' of Ian.

When I wake up the following morning, my entire face feels like it weighs a ton, and the mere act of rolling over in bed takes all my strength and leaves me feeling like I'm about to throw up everything I've eaten for a week.

"Aww," mum coos as she looks down on me in my bed. "My little girl's first hangover... You really are growing up, aren't you?"

"You're the one who wants me to get older faster," I moan, before again inwardly cursing my inability to think before I speak.

"I want you to enjoy your childhood, Kayleigh-Ann," mum retorts in a firm voice that causes me to recoil in pain. "Just because you're sixteen- well, sixteen years and two days, I guess..." That's another new year when I'm reminded that today should be my birthday, I think to myself. "...It doesn't mean you should go and get drunk every chance you get. I did warn you about drinking too much..."

"You're also the one who insisted I go to the party," I say.

"Indeed I am," mum concedes. "In the hope that you'd find a new love for a boy, not a new love for booze! Still, I suppose, the sooner you build up a tolerance to it... I've brought you a cup of black coffee. Want me to leave it on your nightstand?"

"Please," I sigh.

"Next party, try not to get so drunk," mum advises as she leaves. "Most young men tend to steer clear of girls- even ones as attractive as you- if they're falling down drunk all over the place."

"Thanks, mum," I moan, before breaking down in tears as pain and despair overwhelm me.

Despite grandma's 'intervention' a few months ago, I'm no closer to being a boy, to being 'Ian' now than I was way back then. Mum still decides how I live my life, even if she's less overt about it that she was before. I still spend all day every day either being a schoolgirl, or being a gymnast wearing a skin-tight leotard, or being a cheerleader wearing a skirt that barely covers my bum... And now I'm going to spend every evening wearing stupid dresses and too much make-up, having to flirt with guys I hate at parties I don't want to go to.

As I stare at my ultra-feminine body in my mirror, my stress levels once again go into overdrive and my stuffed giraffe's leg once again goes between my teeth. I scream so long I actually do make myself sick, barely making it to the bathroom before puking my guts up and breaking down in another flood of tears. I return to my bedroom and drink down my coffee, but that doesn't do anything to cure my stress- there's only one remedy for that.

"Hello?" Ollie asks as he answers his phone. "Kayleigh-Ann?"

"Ian," I say firmly, despite the fact that my face is still covered in last night's make-up and I'm still wearing the same dress I slept in.

"Umm, okay, if you say so," Ollie says, making me roll my eyes. "I'm kinda not alone right now, Georgie's here, so are my family... What's up?"

"I need Ian," I say. "I need him right now."

"Like I said, I'm with my family today, I can't really get away," Ollie says with an audible grimace.

"I don't care," I say. "Make an excuse. Come round here if you have to. I just need to be Ian, and I need to be him right now because I don't know how much more I can take of this, I really don't."

"Whoa, slow down," Ollie says, before lowering his voice. "Take a few deep breaths... What's brought this on all of a sudden?"

"Last night," I say. "That stupid fucking party... It's going to be the first of many, I know it is."

"Probably," Ollie says. "You're lucky you got invited to it..."

"Have you listened to a single fucking word I've said?" I hiss. "I would have given anything- literally anything- to have been somewhere, anywhere else. I want- I NEED to get away. To be Ian. And you need to help me."

"Even though you're supposed to be sneaking around my back with this supposed 'Ian' character?" Ollie asks, making me growl in frustration.

"Oh, Brooke, you sneaky cunt," I hiss. "That's another person I CAN'T trust to keep a secret, then. I take it you heard that from Georgie?"

"Who else?" Ollie sighs. "She's been rubbing my face in it all morning..."

"I know she's your sister and all," I say, "but I'll happily lump Georgie in with Brooke as people I'd call the C-word."

"Most days, I'll happily go along with you," Ollie sighs. "Okay, I've managed to sneak back to my bedroom so I'm alone now, but I really don't think my family are going to give us any 'Ian time', not today anyway."

"It- gah, okay, fine," I sigh. "You know, just talking has kinda helped, I don't feel the overwhelming urge to skin myself anymore..."

"You know what else would help?" Ollie asks.

"If you say 'sex', I swear I'll take a knife and see how you like being a woman," I say, making Ollie chuckle.

"No, you've made your feelings quite clear about that," Ollie says with an audible twinge of sadness in his voice. "I mean talking to someone, a professional, a counsellor. I've been doing some reading on the internet, virtually every transgendered person sees a counsellor at some point during their transition."

"How am I meant to afford a counsellor on my pocket money?" I retort.

"Because you live in England and we have this thing called the NHS," Ollie says. "Talk to your GP- they're bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, so they can't tell your parents- get them to refer you to a specialist. You never know, you may even be able to come out to your parents and live as Ian full-time."

"That would be a dream come true," I sigh. "But there's no way my parents would ever accept 'Ian'. Hell, they don't even accept you..."

"Yeah, I had noticed," Ollie says. "But talk to a counsellor anyway. They can also prescribe hormone treatments..." Like the ones Laura was talking about a few days ago, I think to myself. I return to my mirror and take another long look at myself, at the girl I am. My breasts are firm, my waist narrow, my limbs slender and my hips wide. My hair- whilst short- is thick and luxurious and my skin is baby smooth.

...And every part of it feels like a living hell. And yet, testosterone would make it all go away. Muscles would grow and hair would sprout from my face and all over my body. My voice would deepen, my waist would begin to widen, and- most importantly of all- I would no longer get the monthly reminders that I am a slave to my own anatomy.

"Ian?" Ollie asks. "Ian? You still there?"

"Yeah," I say with a smile as I look in the mirror and look past the make-up, past the dress and past the 'cute' face to see the boy underneath, the boy I truly am. "Yeah, Ian's still here."

"Still coming over tomorrow?" Ollie asks. "My family will be gone by then, plenty of opportunity for 'Ian time'. And on Sunday too, if you want."

"I'll be there," I say. "As long as you promise not to grope me again!"

"Ugh, why would I want to grope another boy?" Ollie asks, eliciting a rugged, manly chuckle from me.

"Promise you won't grope 'Kayleigh-Ann', then?" I ask.

"I promise," Ollie sighs. "As long as you also promise to call your GP at some point in the New Year."

"It's a deal," I say. "Mate!"

"See you tomorrow, mate!" Ollie laughs as he hangs up the phone, leaving me feeling rejuvenated, even though I am still- outwardly at least- Kayleigh-Ann, the ultra-girly girl.

The following two days, as promised, Ollie helps me to shed all my femininity and enjoy a long, relaxing day eating pizza and playing videogames as Ian, and as promised, Ollie keeps his hands to himself, only giving me the obligatory goodbye kisses to keep up appearances (and to frustrate his sister).

Despite Ollie's advice, I don't call my GP- not immediately, anyway- but I do intensify my research into the process of gender transitioning, which yields one very important piece of information- that I can start to transition fully once I've passed the age of sixteen. I keep this information in the back of mind even as I start back at school, wearing the same skirt and the same tights as the other girls, much as I've done for the past eleven years. Every time my anxiety would grow due to a ballet class, or a gymnastics or cheerleading session, I'd fall back on the knowledge that I could see my GP whenever I wanted and request to see a counsellor, from whom I could request testosterone... Even though it would mean my parents would certainly kick me out on my backside.

And when the tension and anxiety does get too great, I have an option other than my GP- I can always call Ollie. Our chat on New Year's morning would prove to be the first of many chats of that nature, in which I'd vent my frustrations and he'd help me talk through my issues, help me look in the mirror and see the boy I truly am and remind me that there are people out there willing to be 'Ian's friend... People out there who do actually love me, the 'real' me.

As I would come to learn, however, such love would always come with a price.

"A whole week off!" Maisie squeaks in my ear as the bell rings to signify the end of the school day- and indeed, the end of this half of the term.

At least, it would be the end of the school day for me, were it not for the fact that when I arrive home, I immediately head up to my bedroom and exchange the itchy, clingy black tights and knee-length skirt I've worn all day for an even itchier, even clingier pair of pink tights and a black tank leotard, just as I've done every Tuesday and every Friday since the New Year began.

"Ugh," I spit as I adjust the leotard in a vain attempt to make my breasts comfortable within it. "My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann, I am NOT a girl... Who am I fucking kidding?" I sigh as I cover up with a short, fashionable shirt dress and head downstairs to where my mum and dad are waiting with proud smiles on their faces.

"That's the look of someone who's going to try hard tonight, isn't it, Kayleigh-Ann?" Mum asks.

"Sure is!" I say, forcing a smile on my face as I scream internally.

"Because you missed out on Eliza Doolittle," mum reminds me for about the millionth time. "And the captaincy of the cheerleading squad, AND top 3 in your gymnastics competition..." Want to rub it in any further? I think to myself. "But I'm sure you'll try your hardest to get the lead role in Miss Fullerton's production, won't you, Kayleigh-Ann?"

"Of course!" I laugh, even though deep down, the last thing I want to do right now is do any dancing. Nonetheless, I know that's exactly what I must do- the more I disappoint my parents, the more 'depressed' mum gets, and the more 'depressed; mum gets, the more miserable my own life gets to the extent that I end up doing things I really shouldn't... Or rather, I would do, if I had any sharp instruments left in my room.

"Oh, and make sure you pin your hair back before we go to class," mum says, making me internally scream yet again. "Thank GOD it's finally growing back to its PROPER length." Of course, I have no choice but to obey, so for the next hour and a half, I have silver pins holding my shortish blonde hair back as I dance around my teacher's studio in an effort to earn the role my mother so desperately wants me to get.

Finally, the lesson comes to an end and I'm permitted to release my feet from the agonising pointe shoes they've been confined in for the past 45 minutes, but before I do so, I'm interrupted by a familiar grating voice.

"Oh. My. God!" Georgie squeaks as she sits down next to me and forces me into a hug. "You were SO gorgeous out there, you are SO getting the role of Christobel!"

"It's 'Christelle'," I correct my overexcited friend.

"Oh whatever," Georgie snorts. "Some French name beginning with 'C', who cares?"

"It's also, um, Mademoiselle Renou's middle name," Brooke says as she sits down next to us, causing Georgie to gasp in shock, before doubling over in a fit of giggles.

"Oh my god," Georgie gasps. "I didn't know, like, that French people even HAD middle names!" Dear god, I think to myself as I clench my teeth. Could you be anymore fucking irritating?

"Fun fact," Ella says as she sits down next to me and unties her tight blonde bun, "in Australia most people have at least four or five middle names!"

"Oh my god, really?" Georgie asks as I stifle a giggle.

"Seriously," Ella says with a look of utter sincerity on her face. "My dad's full name was Malcolm John Thomas Richard Rod Henry!" I bite my tongue to keep from laughing as Georgie's eyes go wide from the 'information'.

"Oh my god," Georgie breathes. "Wow, I feel, like, so smart for knowing that!"

"Anytime," Ella says, before we both burst into a fit of giggles as Georgie and Brooke head out of the changing room.

"Oh, you evil person," I giggle. "And 'John Thomas Richard Rod'? Were you trying to make me laugh?"

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't," Ella says between her own giggles. "Christ, she annoys me. But, I guess, I gotta learn to live with her if I want to be friends with Abbey-Gayle, or with you..."

"You know, you don't HAVE to live with her," I say. "We could always, you know..."

"What," Ella asks, "break off and form our own Angel group?"

"Who said anything about an 'Angel group'?" I ask. "Why can't we be friends unless we're in some sort of bloody clique?"

"Well, friends, yes," Ella says. "Britain's next biggest supermodel, though..." ...And that's the end of that 'breakthrough', I think as I pull my dress back on and head out of the dance studio. Out of all of my 'Angel friends', Ella is by far the one I like the most- but even she seems to view friendship, especially our friendship, as just a means to be successful, just like the other three. Every time I think I can open up to her, she says something that just slams the door back in my face once again.

The only 'real' friend I have is the same young man who I kiss- to keep up appearances, of course- as I get into his car.

"Alright, mate?" Ollie asks, making me chuckle happily as I try to get comfortable in my dress.

"Every part of me apart from my damn feet," I sigh. "Had another pseudo-audition today, and I know that if I don't get this part, my mum's REALLY going to go through the roof... Wish there was just some way of, you know, telling her about what I REALLY want."

"...When you finally get your counsellor's meeting, then you'll get all the 'tools' you need," Ollie says, making me sigh and groan yet again.

"Whenever THAT will be," I sigh.

"Hey, if you'd gone to your counsellor sooner," Ollie says.

"Yes, yes, yes," I moan. "It's either an NHS waiting list or get my parents to pay for a private therapist, and we all know THAT'S not going to happen..."

"In the meantime," Ollie says, "you've got a whole day tomorrow of junk food and videogames to look forward to!"

"Absolute heaven," I giggle as we arrive back at my home. After giving Ollie another 'keeping up appearances' kiss, I head into my house, where, as per usual, mum is stood with an impatient look on her face.

"Well?" Mum asks. "Did you get the part?"

"We find out next Friday," I say, placating my mother for the time being.

"I do hope you get it," mum sighs as she turns to look at the photo display on our hallway wall. "It's been far too long since we last added a picture to this..." Despite my best efforts, I find myself staring at the photo display as well, and it takes all of my willpower not to scream in frustration at what I see.

Over twenty pictures cover the wall, ranging from when I was four years old and dressed in a frilly pink angel dress (which even then I thought was silly) to just a few months ago, the last time I won a medal (bronze, naturally) at a gymnastics competition. Every photo shows me either wearing a skin-tight gymnastics leotard, a ridiculous fluffy tutu or a fancy dress costume, and I hate every single one of them.

"Can I go and get changed now, please?" I ask, my back teeth grinding together at the sight of my mother looking wistfully at the photographs of the girl I used to be. Mum's curt nod does little to ease my stress as I head upstairs to change out of my dancewear, and within minutes, my stuffed giraffe's leg finds its way between my teeth as I scream away the rest of the evening.

When I wake up the following morning, however, I am in a much calmer, much more relaxed state, and not just because it's Saturday- but because I know that the make-up I apply to my face and the delicate, feminine clothing I pull on will not remain on me for long.

Sure enough, within fifteen minutes of arriving at Ollie's house, my face is scrubbed clean of make-up, my shorts and tights have been replaced with a pair of loose-fitting jeans, my trusty Arsenal baseball cap has been clamped to my head and my hands have been filled with a can of full-fat coke and a videogame controller.

"Relaxed?" Ollie asks as he plops down next to me on his bed.

"More than I've been all week," I giggle. "You really don't know how privileged you are to be a boy. No pressure to take care of your appearance..."

"Thanks, my ego needed that," Ollie says, making me laugh.

"You know what I mean!" I retort. "It'd take 'Ian' three minutes to get ready each morning. Shower, deodorant, done. It takes 'Kayleigh-Ann' well over twenty minutes, and that's AFTER cutting my hair short..."

"Speaking of," Ollie says, "do you reckon you'll do that again? It's kinda growing out already..."

"Like I'd get away with it twice," I sigh. "My grandmother actually keeps telling me off because it isn't growing back fast enough, as though I'm actually stunting its growth."

"This the same grandmother who thinks that Winston Churchill is still prime minister?" Ollie asks.

"More like- I dunno, who was prime minister in 1800 again?" I ask, making Ollie laugh.

"SO glad you're forbidding me from meeting her," Ollie laughs.

"As you're not eighteen for another two weeks, she'd probably yell at you for daring to wear long trousers instead of a sailor suit," I snort.

"God knows what her reaction would be if she discovered that we'd had sex," Ollie said, making my eyes go wide. "Not that we're going to, of course, but the rumours we're putting around-"

"-Are none of her concern," I say. "She'll never find out about them, anyway. She thinks telephones are the work of the devil, let alone smartphones and Facebook."

"'Boys and girls should play with conkers and listen to proper music'," Ollie says in a fake old lady voice that makes me laugh.

"Enough 'granny talk'," I say. "More 'grenade talk'!"

"Yes, sir!" Ollie mock-salutes, making me laugh again as we begin our marathon gaming session.

At the end of the afternoon, however, my heart feels heavy as I reapply my make-up and pull my shorts and my tights back on, knowing that my next 'Ian' session isn't going to be for several days.

I'm reminded of even worse news when I head downstairs and am greeted by the smiling face of Ollie (and Georgie)'s mother.

"Hello, Kayleigh-Ann," the middle-aged woman says in her usual friendly-but-cautious tone.

"Hi, Mrs. Powell," I reply. "Thank you for letting me stay..."

"That's quite alright," Ollie's mother says in a clipped tone. "What time will Ollie be picking you up tomorrow for your date?" I close my eyes as I'm reminded of the steps I must take to 'keep up appearances' with Ollie- as far as the world is concerned, I am his girlfriend, and that means that we occasionally have to go on dates- the most prominent of those occasions being tomorrow, the 14th of February.

Even worse is that despite tomorrow being a Sunday, the week after is half-term at school, so I have no restrictions on getting to bed early... Or even getting to bed in my own bed. I'm sixteen years old, which means I can legally have sex- and both my parents and Ollies' are going to think it's very weird if we don't, especially tomorrow.

"I- I think Ollie said he'd pick me up at around 7pm," I mumble. "We, um, don't know what time we'll be back."

"Well, I'm sure you'll have fun," Mrs. Powell says. I smile at the middle-aged woman as Ollie and I head out to his car, but to my surprise, it's Ollie who lets out the first sigh once we're buckled in and on the road.

"...Problem?" I ask.

"Other than mum being distraught at the thought of her quote-unquote little boy having a girl sleep in his bed overnight, no," Ollie snorts. "Especially considering how often my sister- my YOUNGER sister- sleeps over with her boyfriend."

"Maybe it's because I'm still in school, I dunno," I shrug. "Not like we're going to actually have any sex, anyway."

"Well- yeah," Ollie sighs, making me groan inwardly- it's very obvious that Ollie would prefer it if we weren't just pretending to have sex.

Fortunately, my extended 'Ian session'- and my parents being oddly calm this evening- means my giraffe stays out of my mouth as I climb into bed... Though it's in there the following evening as I prepare for my date.

I pull on my frilliest, laciest underwear, supposedly to 'entice' Ollie (not that he needs 'enticing')- my giraffe's leg finds its way between my teeth.

I apply a thick layer of make-up, transforming my face from 'androgynous girl' to 'beauty queen'- another leg ends up between my teeth.

A short, elegant dress- leg between teeth. My highest pair of heels- leg between teeth. Jewellery- leg between teeth. Perfume- leg between teeth. Nail polish- leg between teeth.

As I stare at my reflection in the mirror, my legs start shaking as my body is overwhelmed with feelings of anxiety and fear- fear that what I see before me is going to be what the rest of my life will entail. Being just a pretty face, a 'dolly' to play dress-up with- and worst of all, an object of desire, to be lusted over by men.

"Have fun on your date, Kayleigh-Ann," mum says with barely restrained contempt as I head out the front door. It's clear that even five months on, she disapproves of my relationship with Ollie- though she does at least respect me enough to allow me to continue it- though how much of that is grandma's doing, I don't know.

"Hey," Ollie says, greeting me with a long kiss as I sit down in his car, keeping the hem of my dress low so as not to flash my lacy black thong to the entire street. "You- you look nice..."

"Where are we going?" I ask.

"A- a hotel on the outskirts of the city," Ollie mumbles. "I, um, booked a room, we'll have dinner, then we'll, um, you know..."

"Get into separate beds and have a nice sleep?" I ask.

"Yeah, um, that," Ollie says. "I, uh, brought my iPad, in case you, you know, get bored..."

"Can we just get this over with, please?" I ask, trying my best to sound sympathetic to Ollie- not to mention appreciative of the effort and expense he's put in to keeping up our facade.

"Okay, I guess," Ollie sighs.

"Ollie..." I say softly. "I DO appreciate the effort you've gone to. And it's not like you won't find a girlfriend- a PROPER girlfriend- it just, you know, can't be me, that's all."

"I know," Ollie says. "If you want to get this over with... We'll do just that." I smile as Ollie drives us to our hotel, where we eat our fancy meal, and go through all the traditional 'couple' motions- linking hands, smiling at each other, looking into each other's eyes... And by the time we finally arrive back at our room, I'm so tense that the second the door is closed, I let out a long, tense scream, which startles Ollie into silence.

"Um, sorry, hehe!" I giggle as I sit down in front of the mirror and immediately set about removing all of my make-up.

"You- you do that a lot?" Ollie asks, sitting down on the bed and removing his shoes and tie.

"The more feminine I'm being, the tenser I get," I explain. "And just look at me right now, for god's sake... I'd give anything, literally anything just to pull on a pair of jeans and forget that dresses even existed!"

"That can be arranged," Ollie says, smirking as he retrieves more clothes from his overnight case- clothes that I immediately recognise as belonging to 'Ian'.

"You-" I gasp as Ollie lays the jeans and the t-shirt on the bed. "You did- aww, Ollie, you're awesome!"

"You're welcome," Ollie chuckles. "Mate!" I giggle excitedly, before stripping off my dress, not even caring that I'm baring my sexy underwear to Ollie.

It's not long before my face is make-up free, and after a quick trip into the room's en-suite bathroom, I am 'released' from my lacy underwear and clad only in the jeans and t-shirt I have come to associate with the happiest times of my life.

"Hello again, Ian!" Ollie laughs and I slump down onto the end of the bed. "Your- um, I mean, you, um, going commando?"

"Unless you've got a spare pair of boxers in that case," I laugh.

"Only my own," Ollie shrugs. "And that's kinda a bit more intimate than I know you want!"

"WAY more intimate," I chuckle. "Nah, it's okay, commando will do for now. Though I may have to expand 'Ian's clothes to include underwear soon!"

"You give me the cash, I'll give you the stash," Ollie laughs. "Kinda wish I'd brought my Xbox now... I'm kinda getting bored. Um, no offence..."

"Nah, none taken," I laugh. "You say you brought your iPad, though?"

"Yeah," Ollie says, fishing around inside his case for the tablet. "Not really got any games we can play together, though, unless you fancy Scrabble..."

"I can think of worse ways to spend an evening," I shrug.

"...I thought you were dyslexic?" Ollie asks.

"Only mildly," I say. "And people are often telling me that word games like Scrabble can help with that, help me construct the words properly..."

"Huh, okay then, I guess," Ollie says, handing me his iPad with the Scrabble app already open on it.

After three games- all of which Ollie wins, annoyingly- I go to put the iPad away, only for Ollie to stop me by grabbing my hand.

"Not giving up already?" Ollie teases.

"Mate, I'm really tired," I sigh. "And you're clearly better than me."

"Come on, one more game," Ollie chuckles. "How about we make it interesting?"

"...Define 'interesting', please?" I ask.

"I'll give you a 50 point head start," Ollie says. "You win, we go to bed. I win... You take off your clothes." My jaw drops at Ollie's request, and I actually have to replay the moment in my mind to be sure that I heard him correctly.

"Sorry, sorry," I say. "Have- are- are you actually pissed, right now?"

"What?" Ollie shrugs. "It IS Valentine's night, we ARE on a date..."

"You ARE pissed," I say, trying to push past Ollie. This is NOT a dare."

"Says the girl who flashed me her thong not long ago," Ollie says.

"BOY," I say.

"Kayleigh-Ann..." Ollie sighs. "What I'm trying to say is- how do you know you won't like sex if you never try it?"

"My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann," I whisper, barely containing my anger. "I am NOT a girl. Ollie, seriously, drop this NOW."

"Do you really want to go your entire life without at least knowing what it's like?" Ollie asks, making my tension levels rise, even despite my male clothing.

"YES," I snap. "I don't really want to know what dog shit tastes like either, should I try that too just to see what it's like?"

"Are you really comparing me to dog shit?" Ollie asks. "It's biology, Kayleigh-Ann."

"IAN!" I yell. "My name IS Ian. I AM a boy!"

"The human body is designed to enjoy sex," Ollie says, squeezing one of my hands in his. "If you try it, you WILL like it."

"Is- was this your plan all along?" I ask, my tension giving way for panic. "To pretend to help me be Ian just to get me into bed?"

"No, of course not," Ollie says, but it's immediately clear that he's lying.

"Ollie, I- I'm really, really uncomfortable right now," I say as I start to hyperventilate. "You- please, please just stop this, please let's go to bed."

"Kayleigh-Ann-" Ollie says as he places a hand on my hip. This startles me so much that I literally jump back away from his touch, stumbling over the edge of the bed and hitting the back of my head on the windowsill.

"Oww..." I moan as the room starts to spin and my hearing grows distorted.

"Kayleigh-Ann?" Ollie asks, rushing over to where I'm sprawled on the floor. "Here, let me..."

"No," I moan, swatting Ollie's hands away from me. "Don't touch me! Don't touch me!"

"You're hurt," Ollie says. "Let me help..."

"Leave me alone!" I scream, throwing a punch that connects with the end of Ollie's nose. The effort of doing this proves too much, however, and I feel my eyes rolling backwards as the entire room grows dark and my body goes limp.

My senses slowly return to me one by one, first my hearing- dominated by a loud, repetitive beeping sound, then touch, letting me know I'm in bed. Smell and taste return next, assaulting my nose with the smell of disinfectant, and finally my eyes open, revealing the concerned faces of my parents- and the fact that I'm not in my bed at home.

"Kayleigh-Ann?" Mum asks with mild panic in her voice. "Can you hear me?"

"Nngh," I moan. "...Mum?"

"Oh, thank god you're alright," mum says.

"Where am I?" I ask, my vision still blurred and my head feeling like it weighs a ton.

"Charing Cross Hospital," mum says. "And don't worry, Ollie won't be coming anywhere near you ever again!"

"Um... Ollie?" I ask. "Wh- how did I get here? Where is he?"

"In custody," mum says with a proud smile. "After he knocked you out, he called us saying that you'd had an 'accident', but when we saw you sprawled on the bed in your dress we knew what had REALLY happened."

"Wait-" I say, concerned for Ollie's safety behind bars. "That's- it was- that wasn't-" My stammering abruptly stops, however, when I realise what my mother just said. "...My dress?"

"Yes," mum says. "It was weird that you were still wearing your dress but not your make-up..." But I WASN'T wearing my dress, that's the whole point- I was wearing 'Ian's clothes, and I certainly didn't change them myself, which means...

"Oh god," I breathe as a wave of panic washes over me. "Oh god, god no..." If I didn't change myself into my dress, the only person who could have done was Ollie... And as I wasn't wearing any underwear, that means he's seen- he's seen me-

"It's okay, Kayleigh-Ann," mum whispers, gently lowering me back into bed. "A policeman will be here soon to take a statement from you, but you need to rest first." I shiver as I lay back down and the entire night's events come flooding back to me- the argument, Ollie's advances, me tripping and falling... Depending on how long it was before Ollie called my parents, he could have done literally anything with me...

"I- I need to talk to Ollie," I say, as I suddenly remember the last thing that happened between me hitting my head and me passing out. "Did- was Ollie, you know, hurt when he was arrested?"

"I don't think so," mum says. "Why, did you try to fight back?"

"I-" I stammer. Yes, I punched him in the nose as hard as I could... And it didn't even so much as scratch him. Thank you very much, feeble, feminine arms...

Tears from in the corners of my eyes as I rub my thighs together, desperately trying to convince myself that Ollie didn't take advantage of my unconscious form. If only I'd been stronger, if only I'd been MALE, then I could've fought back, I could've withstood the blow to my head. Instead, I'm just a 'damsel in distress', a pathetic little GIRL who has to be rescued by her parents because she simply wasn't strong enough.

I bite my lip to keep myself from crying further, though it does little to prevent the tears from coming anyway.

"I just- I just want to go home," I blub.

"The doctors want to make sure you don't have a concussion," mum explains. "Once they're happy that you're okay, they'll let you come home. Though if you are concussed, we can kiss goodbye to the lead role in the ballet recital..." Even when I'm in a hospital bed, mum? I think to myself as I concentrate and try to will myself into being concussed.

"I have to go now, got to get to work," dad says, speaking for the first time since I regained consciousness. "I'll see you two later." I weakly wave as my father leaves, whilst mum remains at my bedside.

"It's a good thing it's half term this week, so you're not missing any school," mum says.

"If you say so," I say, making mum let out a genuine laugh.

"Get some rest, Kayleigh-Ann," mum says. "Would you like me to leave you your phone?"

"Please," I say, smiling as mum hands me my smartphone.

"Don't spend too much time on it in case you are concussed," mum advises. "The second you start feeling ill or dizzy-"

"Yes, I know," I say, making my mother briefly frown before she leaves me in peace. Immediately, I login to Facebook, and almost drop my phone in surprise when I see the name at the top of the 'online' list- the name 'Oliver Powell'. Mere seconds later, my phone pings to let me know I have a new message.

'Hi,' Ollie's message reads. 'Are you okay?'

'No thanks to you,' I type, before shaking my head and deleting the message.

'I'm in the hospital,' I type. 'Doctors think I might have a concussion.' Ollie's reply of a frowning emoticon makes me roll my eyes in frustration.

'I'm really sorry about last night,' Ollie types. 'I don't know what I was thinking... Can you forgive me?'

'You weren't thinking,' I reply. 'You were a horny idiot. I've said a hundred times that this 'relationship' isn't a real one, never will be a real one, and yet you pressured me for sex anyway.'

'I apologise a million times,' Ollie said. 'When you said 'no', I should've left it at that.' I shiver as I remember what my parents said about me being laid on the bed in my dress.

'So you stripped me naked anyway?' I ask, rolling my eyes as Ollie takes what seems like ages to write a reply.

'I couldn't let them find you in Ian's clothes,' Ollie replies. 'How would you have explained that?'

'As a sex game between us that got out of hand?' I reply. 'Our parents thought we were staying in a hotel so we could have sex, we could've said that they were your clothes and I was wearing them as foreplay or something. Ollie, I need to know, while I was unconscious, did you do anything?' I type and retype the final four words of my message a dozen times, desperately trying to find a better wording before giving in and sending the message anyway.

'Of course not,' comes the immediate reply. 'I swear, I honestly didn't do anything. Didn't even take any pictures.' I retch at the thought of Ollie taking a photo of my naked, unconscious form before crafting my reply.

'I believe you, even though I don't want to,' I reply, before closing the messenger window and opening up my Facebook profile, where I immediately change my relationship status to 'single'.

'Why did you just change your status?' Ollie types, making me groan with frustration.

'Because after last night, I never want to see you again,' I type. 'I thought you were a friend, thought you wanted to help me become Ian when all you wanted was to help yourself.'

'I'm still the only chance you'll have of ever becoming Ian,' Ollie types.

'Not anymore, you're not,' I type. 'That remark about taking pictures proves that. We're done. Goodbye, Ollie.' I toss my phone back onto the table next to my bed, before letting out a long sigh. As much as I can't afford to trust Ollie anymore, he wasn't entirely wrong when he said that he was my best chance of becoming 'Ian', but after what he did, the way he betrayed my trust...

I bite my lip yet again to hold back the tears as I realise that when I get dressed to leave the hospital, it will be in the clothes mum brought with her- which will inevitably consist of a tight, girly top and a short skirt. All of 'Ian's clothes are no longer accessible to me, as I stashed them at Ollie's house- I can't get them myself or ask Ollie to bring them over without rousing suspicion, and I certainly can't ask his sister to bring them to me... As of right now, Ian Freeman is effectively a dead man. It's time to face the facts- my name IS Kayleigh-Ann, and I AM a girl. I spend the next ten minutes laid on my back in the bed, tears flowing freely as I let this face sink in...

I return home a few hours later after the doctors declare me to be concussion-free, and as I predicted, on my legs are a pair of dark tights, hanging from my waist is a pleated grey miniskirt and covering my torso is a clingy, long-sleeved, low-cut khaki top. The second I step through the front door, I all but sprint up the stairs to my bedroom, where I bite down hard on my stuffed giraffe's leg and let out a long, angry scream. Why can't I just win, even if it's just the once...

The one consolation is that, as mum pointed out, it IS half term, so I have a week to get over my separation from Ollie, and by extension, my separation from 'Ian'- and I have a week to devise a way to 'get back together' with my alter ego...

"Kayleigh-Ann!" Mum yells from downstairs, snapping me out of my funk. "Come downstairs, the police officer's here to take your statement!" I sigh as I get off my bed, forcing a smile on my face as I head into the living room to find a uniformed police officer sat waiting for me.

"Hello, Miss Walker," the policewoman- a short, stout woman in her early fifties- says in a polite voice. "I'd just like to ask you a few questions about last night, if that's alright. Are you okay to speak to me now?"

"Kayleigh-Ann will answer any questions you have," mum says, before I have a chance to respond.

"...Yes," I mumble.

"Take your time," the policewoman says. "If you feel uncomfortable at any point and want to stop, just say. In your own words, please tell me what happened last night."

"Umm, me and Ollie..." I say hesitantly. "We'd- we'd booked a hotel room- well, he had. We, um, we were talking, he, um, he tried to-"

"Go on, Kayleigh-Ann," mum whispers softly as I hesitate. Clearly, mum wants me to drop Ollie in it- she's never liked him and is undoubtedly over the moon that we've split up- but the fact of the matter is that he didn't DO anything apart from strip me of my clothes. That's surely an offence of some kind, but how do I explain that I was wearing men's clothing? Mum's not going to buy the 'sex game' story...

"We were talking," I say. "I stood up, I tripped over the edge of the bed, I banged my head on the windowsill... That's all I remember."

"Don't you remember ANYTHING else, Kayleigh-Ann?" Mum asks, clearly disappointed in my refusal to implicate Ollie.

"...Nothing," I say. Except feebly trying to punch him, I think to myself.

"Is that enough to charge him?" Mum asks the policewoman.

"I don't want to press charges," I say firmly. "It was an accident."

"Kayleigh-Ann," the policewoman says in a calm voice. "There's no need to be afraid, you don't need to protect him. We can ensure that you never have contact with that boy ever again."

"I'm not protecting him," I say. "That really is all that happened."

"...If you insist," the policewoman says, also clearly disappointed by my lack of co-operation. "If you think of anything else you want to add to your statement, don't hesitate to call me- here's my contact details."

"Thank you," I say, taking the card from the policewoman as mum escorts her out of the house.

"Kayleigh-Ann," mum says sternly once the policewoman has left. "Why did you lie to a police officer? I thought I raised you better than that..."

"I didn't lie," I plead. "Ollie didn't lay a finger on me, we were talking, I tripped, I fell, I hit my head..."

"I watch TV shows every day about women who 'tripped' when they were arguing with their lovers," mum says. "I don't want you to become one of those women, Kayleigh-Ann. You can't physically defend yourself against a man like another man can. If you don't press charges against Ollie, than your next boyfriend will think that he can get away with whatever he wants."

"I don't want a 'next boyfriend'," I protest. "Ever!"

"That's only how you feel now," mum says. "In a few weeks you'll feel differently, and I have several friends who have young sons who I think you'll like a lot. They're not all footballers, or actors and I reckon if you take the time to get to know them-"

"Seriously!?" I ask mum. "I've only just split from Ollie and you're trying to set me up with another boy?" My heart sinks as mum holds her hand to her forehead, as I know what's inevitably going to come next...

"I need to lie down," mum says in an overly dramatic voice, before rushing upstairs to her bedroom. A short while later, I'm in my own room, screaming quietly into my pillow as I hear mum softly moan from the adjacent bedroom.

I remain in my room for the rest of the afternoon, not wanting to head downstairs even to quench my thirst as I'm that anxious about the inevitable 'follow-up' to mum's latest attack...

Sure enough, once dad returns from work, he immediately heads up to the master bedroom to check on mum... And five minutes later comes storming into my bedroom with a look of pure fury on his face.

"What the hell have you done now?" Dad growls. "Your mother is in that bedroom, barely able to move thanks to what you did!"

"Dad..." I moan. "I only got out of hospital a few hours ago!"

"And if your mother gets any worse that's where you'll go straight back to!" Dad yells, bringing tears to my eyes. "Consider yourself grounded for the rest of the half-term!"

"Fine by me!" I yell, tears now freely flowing. "I've got nowhere to go this week anyway..." I sob softly into my pillow, cursing my oestrogen-flooded body with every tear the trickles down my cheeks.

If I was stronger, I could stand up to dad, maybe even talk him down... The man is so weak-willed he barely qualifies as a man and certainly only barely qualifies as a father. The only time he and I have any contact is when he's punishing me for what I've supposedly done to mum, even though the two of them argue so often, arguments that are always louder and more vicious than anything I ever say to mum. Though oddly enough, mum and dad's arguments never cause mum to have one of her 'attacks'...

I stay in room for the rest of the day, skipping dinner despite having had very little to eat or drink since leaving the hospital. Naturally, dad doesn't even bother to check to see if I want anything, despite serving mum her dinner in bed. I probably wouldn't have eaten the vegan crap he would've made regardless, but either way, my stomach growls as I eventually climb under my bed sheets, and when I wake up the following morning, I'm so hungry I'm actually in pain, but when I sit down at the breakfast table, all dad does is stare at me with a look of utter contempt in his eyes.

"You know where the cereal is," my so-called father spits. "I hope you're ready to apologise for what you did to your mother."

"I didn't 'do' anything," I retort. "I've only just split from Ollie and already she was trying to set me up-"

"Save the excuses, Kayleigh-Ann," dad snorts. "I've had to take today off work to look after your mother. At this rate we might not even get a holiday this year, the way you're going." My right hand clenches into a fist as I pour my corn flakes into a bowl and cover them with my parents' preferred revolting soy milk, before choking them down as fast as I can and leaving the breakfast table without saying another word.

"Oh, and Kayleigh-Ann?" Dad says as I leave the kitchen. "Your grandmother's coming around this morning, so make sure you're dressed appropriately."

After spending a good quarter of an hour screaming away my frustrations with my giraffe's leg between my teeth, I find myself sat on the sofa, desperately trying not to fidget in my frilly pink dress, my itchy old white tights and my Mary-Jane shoes. I take a deep breath as a knock comes from our front door, followed by a familiar voice.

"Hello, Craig," grandma says, letting herself into the house. "Why hello, Kayleigh-Ann! My, don't you get prettier every time I see you! Where's Angela today, Craig?"

"In bed," dad says. "She's unwell again. Thanks to Kayleigh-Ann misbehaving."

"What?" Grandma asks, her previously sweet demeanour instantly changing to one of fury. "What have you done now, young lady?"

"Umm, I-" I stammer.

"Don't 'umm' at me!" Grandma snaps. "Tell me, now!"

"I- I wouldn't let mum set me up with a new boyfriend," I say meekly, hoping vainly that this feeble excuse will bring grandma around to my side.

"And why not?" Grandma asks, just as angry as before.

"Because- because I'd only just split up from Ollie," I say, trying not to mumble out of fear that grandma will scold me further.

"And is that any excuse to send your mother to her sick bed?" Grandma asks, making my insides so tense that I feel almost like my ribs are being crushed.

"No..."I say.

"She's grounded for a week," dad says- but only once it's clear that grandma has stopped talking.

"That hardly seems like enough of a punishment, for what she did," grandma scoffs.

"Kayleigh-Ann, you're grounded for two weeks," dad says, looking toward grandma for approval.

"That's still very lenient," grandma snorts.

"Three weeks," dad immediately says, making my eyes bulge through sheer frustration- especially as less than a minute later, mum walks down the stairs looking right as rain.

"Oh, hello Elaine," mum says, sitting down on the sofa as though nothing had ever been the matter with her. "I thought I heard your voice."

"Hello, Angela, it's good to see you're feeling better," grandma says, shooting a disapproving stare in my direction. I internally scream at the fact that out of everyone in the room, I seem to be the only person who can see through my mother's charade of 'depression'.

"I'll be fine after I see my counsellor tomorrow," mum says, and I grimace as I brace myself for grandma's inevitable retort.

"'Counsellors'," grandma scoffs. "We didn't have counsellors in my day, we just got on and did things! All these co-called 'counsellors' are good for is taking your money and telling what you already know- that there's nothing wrong with you and you just need to pull yourself together!" I literally bite my tongue to keep myself from screaming- not just as grandma's antiquated world view, but at the fact that if I'd said anything even remotely similar to mum, she'd be back upstairs again and I'd be grounded for another three centuries. When these words come out of grandma's mouth, however, mum simply laughs it off and offers her own retort.

Grandma stays for the next two hours- which feels like almost two million years- sharing her views on psychiatrists, depression, Britain's membership of the EU (which, surprise surprise, she is strongly against), Jeremy Corbyn and, of course, LGBT people. By the time she's left, I literally breathe a sigh of relief as I head upstairs to change into a pair of shorts.

"You may as well change into a pair of ballet tights, Kayleigh-Ann," mum says as I leave the living room.

"Umm... But my head still hurts, I can't go to ballet tonight," I plead, despite the risk that this will trigger another 'attack' for mum.

"The doctor says you don't have a concussion, so you're okay to dance," mum retorts.

"But- but-" I stammer. The one good thing about my head injury was that I thought I could use it to get out of ballet class, but now I have to go anyway?

"You may as well pull on your leotard as well while you're up there," mum says, making me scream internally. My scream quickly becomes external- albeit muffled by the leg of a stuffed toy- when I reach my room, and when I look in the mirror and see myself in my childish white tights and pink dress, something inside my brain snaps.

I stop screaming, my giraffe limply dropping to the floor, as I stare at my reflection and weep. I'm about to exchange a ridiculous pink dress and white tights for even clingier, sweatier pink tights and a skin-tight black leotard. Then, I'm going to tie a pair of satin pointe shoes to my feet and prance around a room for an hour in an effort to convince a woman I barely like that I want to dance in her production.

And this is what my life's going to be like every day from now, until the day I die. All I have to look forward to is misery and death... And I've had my fill of misery.

I search through my drawers, desperately looking for a pair of scissors, a knife or anything with a sharp blade that I can use to cut open my wrists and end the misery that is my existence. However, Grandma Jones was thorough when she cleaned out my drawers- I don't have a single thing in my room that could possibly break skin. I break down in floods of tears and sink to the floor, not caring that I'm creasing my dress, before something on my windowsill catches my eye.

Among all the ornaments on my windowsill is a large, heavy pebble that's been painted to resemble a fantasy cottage. I lift the stone in my hands, wincing at my lack of muscles as I strain under its weight. If I can't end my life, then I can at least end my commitment to ballet...

I take a deep breath as I place my foot on the side of my dresser and raise the stone above my head. Sure, this will hurt, but in the long run, it'll be worth it. I aim the stone at my outstretched toes and bring the stone down hard...

"Kayleigh-Ann?" Mum asks as she opens my bedroom door, causing my foot to slip off the dresser just as the rock goes clattering into it. "What- did- did you-why are- Kayleigh-Ann, did you just- did you just try to break your own foot?"

"No," I immediately protest, before my eyes uncontrollably fill with tears. "Yes..." My legs suddenly lose the ability to keep me upright and I sink to the floor, bawling my eyes out and screaming in pure anguish. Everything in my life is like it's been designed to screw me over. Being born female, having the parents that I do... And now, I can't even injure myself without it being ruined by my mother, who will inevitably have another 'episode' that will mean I'll be grounded until the end of the universe itself.

Much to my surprise, however, mum doesn't feign illness, or criticise me, or even shout at me. Instead, she kneels down on the floor beside me and gives me a long, tender hug... The likes of which I haven't felt in many, many years.

"Oh god, Kayleigh-Ann, I'm so sorry..." Mum sniffles, weeping genuine tears of her own. "How could I have been so blind not to see this? It's so obvious..." my breathing speeds up- has mum found out about Ian? Better yet, is she saying that she'll accept 'him'?

"You- you know about him?" I ask excitedly.

"Well of course I do," mum says, snorting out a laugh. "You've been going out with him for five months! And now you've split from him, your first ever break-up... " My heart sinks- obviously mum doesn't know about 'Ian', I've been too careful... But this is still the closest I've been to her in a very long time, and it feels so nice to just get a genuine motherly hug.

"And here I am, trying to set you up with another boy when your heart's still hurting," mum sighs. "I'm sorry, Kayleigh-Ann. Consider yourself not grounded." I sniffle as mum apologises to me for the first time ever in my life. Maybe things are finally starting to look up...

"Thank you," I whisper. "...Can I put my shorts back on now?"

"Of course you can!" Mum laughs. "And as you're not grounded, I'm going to get a treat for you. Wait right here, I know EXACTLY what will cheer you up!" I grin as I change into my shorts, leaving my legs tights-free, before climbing onto my bed to try to calm myself down.

My life isn't any better than it was before I tried to hurt myself. I'm still a girl, I still have crap parents and a psycho grandmother, and I'm still eventually going to have to put my dancewear back on... But at least my mum is finally beginning to see things from my perspective, finally beginning to treat me as an adult... Maybe one day, she'll even treat me as a man?

My heart sinks again half an hour later, though, when my 'treat' arrives... And it turns out to be Abbey-Gayle, Brooke, Georgie and Ella. Nonetheless, I force a smile on my face- a smile that becomes less and less forced when I see the actual physical treats the four of them care carrying, in the shape of cups of hot chocolate, a big, warm, fluffy blanket and Georgie's extensive make-up kit. The last item may be the least welcome thing in the world right now- but I guess it's the thought that counts.

"Oh my GOD!" Georgie sighs as she sits down, uninvited, on the edge of my bed. "Like, I SO can't believe my stupid brother!"

"Yeah, like, what a creep!" Brooke spits as she wraps the blanket around me. "Knocking you out like that..."

"He didn't 'knock me out', I just slipped, that's all," I say. "And no, he didn't 'do' anything whilst I was out." Apart from strip me naked, I think to myself.

"Well, either way, he'll regret what he did soon enough," Abbey-Gayle says smugly, making me pause.

"What- what exactly have you done?" I ask.

"Reuben, Andrew and Marley have invited him out for a 'drink'," the tall, dark-skinned girl says with a smug smile, referring to her, Brooke's and Georgie's boyfriends respectively.

"Let's just say you won't be the only person in London with a head injury tonight!" Ella says with an evil laugh as my eyes go wide in shock.

"No- no, really," I say as panic takes over. "You can't!"

"Oh relax," Brooke laughs. "They're just going to kick him around a bit, they've been told not to break any bones or really knock him out."

"Though, like, the creep TOTALLY deserves it!" Georgie snorts.

"Really, please, don't," I say. "He doesn't deserve it, really, please..."

"Oh- okay then, if you insist," Abbey-Gayle sighs as she composes a text message. "But you're making a mistake."

"Yeah," Brooke says. "You've got to let them know who's boss. Guys shouldn't ever take us girls for granted!"

"Damn right!" Ella laughs in her thick Australian accent. "Especially not super-sexy Angels like us, right?"

"Right!" The other girls all cheer.

"And besides," Brooke whispers in a sly voice. "You still got 'Ian', haven't you?" I roll my eyes as I remember the 'cover story' I told Brooke at the new year- the story that undoubtedly quickly got spread to the other four girls.

"...Not anymore," I sigh, prompting a group hug with me in the middle.

"Please tell me you at least got rid of HIM?" Abbey-Gayle asks, confirming my suspicions about Brooke's loose tongue.

"That was... a mutual thing," I sigh.

"Well we're going to do our best to make sure that you're not single for long," Abbey-Gayle says with a smug grin. "No super sexy, super girly Angel like you should be single at all, right girls?"

"Really, I just want to get over Ollie- and, I guess Ian- first," I say.

"And when you're done getting over them," Abbey-Gayle says, "you message me, and you will have your pick of any boy in London!"

"Any SINGLE boy," Brooke giggles, moving the topic of discussion on to gossip about the boyfriends of the other four girls- whom they all complain about despite the fact that they claim to love them- followed by Abbey-Gayle and Ella's modelling work and ending on the topic of tonight's ballet auditions.

"You'd better get ready, Kayleigh-Ann," Ella says as she reaches into my dancewear drawer- uninvited- and hands he a pair of tights and a clean leotard. "I know you're going to knock it out of the park tonight!"

"Ugh, I wish," I lie. "I'm still dizzy from Sunday night..."

"Like, so?" Georgie asks, earning a blank stare from me.

"So I can't really do any pirouettes," I explain. "I'll only get dizzier?"

"Like, I don't know how the brain works!" Georgie complains, a statement which forces Ella suppress a giggle.

"If I tried dancing some of the steps Mademoiselle Renou laid out, I'd probably fall flat on my arse," I snort.

"Ugh," Ella spits. "You know who apparently did that last year? Laura, the transgendered girl from our class."

"What, really?" Abbey-Gayle asks.

"Yeah," Ella says, snorting with laughter. "Apparently she also..." Ella mimes sticking her fingers down her throat and retching, prompting snorts of laughter from the other three girls as my heart sinks further. I knew that Abbey-Gayle, Brooke and Georgie could be utter bitches, but for Ella to mock the eating disorder of a fourteen year old girl... I really can't believe that I nearly confided in her about the 'real me'.

Pulling on the stretchy dancewear, especially in front of the other four girls, who don't even give me any privacy, considering the amount of times we've changed together, serves to remind me that I'm as far away from becoming 'Ian' as I ever was. Yes, I now have loving parents, but that love is clearly conditional on me being and remaining a girl. Yes, I have friends, but they're all girls, they'd stab me in the back the first chance they'd get if they thought it'd help their careers, or their love lives, or if they thought it'd be fun... I don't want 'friends' like that, I want a proper mate... Like I had with Ollie...

I sigh as I adjust my breasts in my leotard- two other things I'd be more than happy to live without- before covering up with my shorts and a pink, dance-themed t-shirt, grabbing my dance bag and leading the four girls downstairs.

"Hello girls!" Mum says with a wide smile. "I hope you all helped Kayleigh-Ann cheer up after her break-up?"

"We did our best, Mrs. Walker," Abbey-Gayle says. "Think this heart's going to take a bit more mending, though!"

"First break-ups are always hard," mum sighs. Even harder when you're breaking up with two guys at once, I self-pityingly think to myself before being led out to Abbey-Gayle's boyfriend's car. I frown as the dark-skinned girl spends several minutes making out with her boyfriend before allowing him to drive us to our dance class, though the frown only deepens when we eventually arrive there and I realise that I'm going to be spending the next hour dancing, whether I like it or not.

"Hi, Kayleigh-Ann," Miss Fullerton says with a concerned voice. "I understand you've been in hospital recently, do you think you'll be okay to dance tonight?" ...or maybe I won't have to dance, I think to myself.

"I- I don't know," I sigh, trying to keep myself from smiling too much. "I'm still feeling a little dizzy..."

"I'm not going to make you dance if you're not up to it," Miss Fullerton says, leading me toward the empty dance studio. "Could you could a couple of pirouettes for me now, please?"

"Umm, okay," I say, stripping off my shorts and my t-shirt and willing my fading dizziness to return. I do a couple of steps as Miss Fullerton instructs, and the second I land my foot, I allow myself to stumble sideways, causing Miss Fullerton to rush forward and steady me.

"Okay, you're not alright to dance tonight," Miss Fullerton sighs, and I try to hide my glee as I pull my shorts and my t-shirt back on. “I’m sorry, Kayleigh-Ann- I know how much you wanted this role.”

“I’m sure there are other girls who wanted it more,” I shrug. “I should- I should, um, call my mum, get her to pick me up.”

“Huh, okay,” Miss Fullerton says. “Sure you don’t want to stay and watch?” And sit around in clingy lycra for an hour? No thank you, I think to myself.

“I- I should rest up,” I say. “Try to get my strength back…”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Miss Fullerton sighs. “God knows I missed more than my fair share of ballet lessons when I was younger, thanks to my trips to hospital. You get yourself better, I’ll see you next week, okay?”

“Okay,” I say with a genuine smile. I barely restrain a fist pump as I head back out to Abbey-Gayle and the girls, who stare at me expectantly.

“Not happening,” I sigh, making all four girls groan in frustration.

“Oh, man…” Abbey-Gayle sighs. “Really thought this was gonna be your one, you know?”

“Maybe next time,” I shrug. “Gotta call my mum, get her to pick me up…”

“Sure,” Abbey-Gayle says as I head out of the studio and dial home.

“Hello?” Mum’s voice answers after one ring.

“Hi mum, it’s me,” I say. “I- I did a few steps for Miss Fullerton and nearly fell flat on my bum… I don’t think I’m gonna be able to dance tonight, or Friday.” I brace myself- despite mum’s ‘thawing’ earlier today, crushing her dreams of me being a ballerina might just undo everything…

“Oh…” Mum sighs. “You- you really don’t have any luck, do you, Kayleigh-Ann?”

“Umm, I guess not,” I say, surprised by mum’s willingness to put everything down to ‘luck’.

“First your head, and now your depression…” Mum sighs. “I should’ve known that when you inherited my talent for performing, you’d have got my artistic temperament too, and with it my depression… I’m so sorry I did that to you, Kayleigh-Ann.” …Sure, I think to myself. Let’s go with that. I open my mouth to respond, when I see Laura and her gang walk into the studio, all dressed and ready to dance, and an idea suddenly pops into my head.

“I- I think it would be good if I saw a counsellor to help me with my depression,” I say. Laura’s spoken before of seeing a counsellor for her transsexualism, and if I pitch it to mum this way, I can skip the waiting list for an NHS counsellor. “I know that grandma-“

“Don’t you worry about what that old hag thinks,” mum says, making me snort with laughter. “I’m seeing my counsellor tomorrow, you can come along and I’ll see if she can give you an assessment.” My heart beats faster with excitement at the prospect of someone I can open up to- and someone who won’t want me to ‘open up’ for them, unlike my so-called mate Ollie. However, mum will inevitably want to be in the same room when I have my assessment…

“Umm, could I have an assessment by myself?” I ask. “There are kinda things I’m not comfortable talking about in front of you…”

“What kind of things?” Mum scoffs. “…Oh, I see. Don’t worry, Kayleigh-Ann, I’ll see that you get a private assessment.”

“Thanks, mum,” I say with a grin. “Can you- can you come and pick me up, please? I’m kinda still dizzy, and it’s cold in the waiting area.”

“I’ll be right there,” mum says warmly.

The following day- clad in my shorts, a pair of thick tights and a clingy long-sleeved top, naturally- I find myself sat in front of a kindly-looking middle-aged woman, my heart beating faster than ever as I prepare to bare my soul.

“Hello, Kayleigh-Ann,” the woman says. “My name’s Doctor Alice Hall, today won’t be a formal counselling session, we’ll just be talking through your issues so we can establish exactly what help and counselling we can offer you to help you feel better.”

“I understand,” I say, fidgeting in my chair in my eagerness to spill my guts to the counsellor.

“From the form your mother filled in,” Dr Hall says, “it says that you’re having difficulty with depression and self-harm- can you tell me, please, how you feel when you get the urge to harm yourself?”

“…Frustrated,” I say, trying to remain calm. “Angry…”

“What is it about your life that frustrates you?” Dr Hall asks. Where do I start? I think to myself. Being forced to perform for uncaring parents; a psychotic grandmother who doesn’t recognise that I’m practically an adult; being drooled over by boys day in, day out; false, bitchy ‘friends’ who would stab in the back the first opportunity they got if they though it would benefit them; being betrayed by the person I thought was my best friend… No. I know EXACTLY where to start, what the root of all my problems is.

“…What frustrates me is,” I say, taking a deep breath. “…I wish I’d been born a boy.” Time seems to stand still as the counsellor digests what I’ve said and I panic, wondering whether or not what I said was heard by anyone else, whether or not I’m going to be outed to the whole world…

“How long have you felt like this?” Dr Hall asks, causing me to breathe a sigh of relief.

“At least since puberty,” I say. “The more I develop into a woman, the more- the more ‘wrong’ I feel. It’s like, I’m constantly fidgety, and when I have to do traditionally feminine things, like ballet, or gymnastics, I tense up, feel like I have to scream…”

“Have you told your parents about this?” Dr Hall asks.

“I- I can’t,” I sob. “Mum’s got it into her head that I’m going to be a big, famous movie star, dad doesn’t give a shit about me, he never has, my grandmother’s so conservative she makes Hitler look like Jeremy Corbyn and my other grandmother lives in Cardiff so I barely get to see her. I- I used to have a pretend boyfriend, someone I could pretend to be a boy with, but- but he just saw me as someone he could have sex with, so now I have no one, and I feel like I’m stuck like this, I’m trapped in this body, trapped in this life… I have actually thought of killing myself more than once, I’m that miserable.”

“If you’re having suicidal thoughts, then the ‘situation’ clearly is serious,” Dr Hall says. “I’m not qualified to diagnose gender dysphoria- the feeling that you were born the wrong gender- but I can certainly refer you on to a counsellor who can. The priority, however, has to be your self-harm and suicidal thoughts.”

“…I understand,” I say, disappointed that Dr Hall can’t diagnose me as transsexual but relieved that she is at least taking my feelings seriously.

“If gender dysphoria turns out to be the root cause of your depression, then by all means, we can recommend a course of treatment,” Dr Hall says. “However, first, I’d like to explore other avenues. I get teens in here all the time suffering from depression as their parents are forcing them to, as you say, ‘perform’- I’m sure you’ve heard of ‘stage mums’?”

“First hand,” I sigh. “Mum always wanted to be an actress but she could never make it, so I’m going to be the big superstar instead. They even planned my birth so that I’d be a millennial baby, I was born two days early and every birthday, I’m reminded that I should’ve been born on January 1st 2000.”

“It’s natural to want to rebel, especially in your teenage years,” Dr Hall says. “It’s possible that your escapism, by pretending to be a boy, is a part of the need to rebel, rather than the cause of it.”

“…I guess,” I sigh. “But when I’m dressed as Ian, everything just feels so… Right. It’s like I’m finally the person I was meant to be, I’m relaxed, I’m carefree… I’ve had a ‘catchphrase’, a ‘chant’ I’ve said to myself virtually every day since I turned thirteen. It goes ‘my name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann, I am NOT a girl’… I used to think that if I chanted that enough times, it’d eventually come true.”

“I see,” Dr Hall nods. “As I said, I’m not qualified to diagnose gender dysphoria, but I’ll get you an appointment with someone who can as soon as possible. However, even if you are diagnosed, there will be many hurdles to overcome before you can start living in the identity of your preferred gender.”

“I know,” I sigh. “I need to tell my parents, my friends… Ugh, my grandmother…”

“Coming out is one of the most stressful things a person can do, especially to family,” Dr Hall says softly. “I’m concerned that such stress may affect you negatively, especially if you’re self-harming.”

“…I understand,” I say, my disappointment plain in my voice.

“Ultimately, would you like to live life full-time as a man?” Dr Hall asks.

“I- I guess,” I say. “I’ve never really thought about it that way, never thought that I’d ever actually have that option. But I- I really don’t think I can live as a girl for much longer.”

“If you are diagnosed with gender dysphoria,” Dr Hall explains, “then if your counsellor feels it appropriate, they can prescribe you with hormone treatments that will chemically change you.”

“Testosterone?” I ask, excitement creeping into my voice.

“Yes,” Dr Hall confirms. “But only if they feel it would benefit you, and that can only happen if you’re in a stable emotional state.”

“My ‘instability’ is caused by me being the wrong gender,” I retort, my frustration increasing.

“If that’s determined to be the case, then hormone replacement therapy will be looked at more seriously,” Dr Hall says. “But as you’re still dependent on your parents, it can only happen with their permission, or once you legally become an adult.”

“You sound like my grandma,” I spit.

“I understand how frustrating this must be for you,” Dr Hall says. “But believe me when I say that I want to help you. My goal is to help you overcome your depression and tendency to self-harm. If that means referring you to someone who can prescribe testosterone, then that’s what I’ll do, but only if I’m convinced that that will be the best course of action.”

“So, basically, I have to wait it out?” I ask.

“If it’s any consolation,” Dr Hall says, “the procedure is a lot more complicated for children under the age of sixteen. And I will confess, when you came in here and I saw your date of birth, I honestly thought it would be exam stress. If I’d known that it was a transgender issue, I’d have immediately rearranged for you to see a gender issue specialist.”

“I couldn’t put that on my form without my mum seeing it,” I sigh. “And I can’t tell her without her going fully off the deep end. Or my dad. And certainly not any of my friends or either of my grandmothers.”

“A gender specialist can help you to come out to your parents,” Dr Hall says. “And I will make sure that you leave this appointment with a date and time to see someone to talk about your gender identity issues, I promise.”

“Thanks,” I say, slumping back in my chair as the topic of conversation turns back to my self-harm. I don’t truly know what I was expecting when I entered this meeting, and yet I feel disappointed. Sure, it feels good to finally bare my soul, to finally reveal the ‘true me’ to someone- especially someone I’ve never met before- but the fact of the matter is that next Monday, I’ll still be pulling on a pair of tights and a skirt to go to school, and the following day I’ll still squeeze my body into a skin-tight leotard in order to spend the evening dancing ballet.

A month later, I finally get my meeting with a gender dysphoria specialist called Dr Williamson, who takes over my ‘case’ from Dr Hall. The meeting goes virtually identically to my first meeting with Dr Hall- right down to focussing more on my depression than on my gender identity itself- and I leave not only without my desired diagnosis (Dr Williamson says it’ll take more sessions before I can receive that as she also wants to make sure that ‘Ian’ isn’t just a way of rebelling against my parents’ wishes), but with my body tied up in a tense knot as I return home to cover it in a pair of pink tights and a skin-tight black leotard, ready to dance the evening away.

My diagnosis isn’t the only thing I want that I lack- in the month since my separation from Ollie, I haven’t spoken to him once… Nor have I made any effort to find a replacement for him, meaning that Dr Williamson is the only person in whom I can confide- and even then, our meetings are only once every two weeks. I can’t tell any of my family about ‘Ian’, I can’t tell anyone at school for fear that my life will be made even more of a living hell, I certainly can’t tell Abbey-Gayle or any of her gang… It’s like for every step forward- seeing a counsellor- I take a step backward- losing my best mate.

When I arrive at the dance studio, however, I see a ray of hope smiling back at me in the shape of Laura White. She, like me, knows the pain of being forced to live as the wrong gender. She, like me, has suffered mental trauma as a result. And if she can overcome her obstacles to live the life they she wants, then so can I. And as much as losing the support of Ollie is a step backward, seeing Dr Williamson is a much, much bigger step forward.

I am determined. I WILL get that diagnosis. I WILL throw away my dancewear, my dresses and my make-up and never wear them again. I WILL get testosterone… And I WILL make my parents understand that I need to live my life the way I want, rather than the way they want.

I just wish that last part wasn’t the biggest obstacle of all…

I grimace as I feel the pressure increase on my back, and grip the armrests of my chair for support whilst my ‘friends’ all whoop and cheer. I force the corners of my lips to turn upwards into a smile, though that smile soon fades when the roar of the jet engine is drowned out by a loud squeak from my right hand side.

“Oh! My! God!” Georgie squeaks, shredding my nerves more and more with every word she says. “This is so awesome!”

“Yeah,” I reply, using all of the acting skills I’ve learned throughout my life to try to appear enthusiastic about our upcoming trip, when in fact, it’s all I can do not to open the plane’s emergency exit and jump out- without a parachute, if necessary. My stress levels only increase as Marley- Georgie’s boyfriend- flagrantly reaches his hand underneath Georgie’s top and starts tickling her back, even though I’m sat literally inches away from the giggling, airheaded girl.

As I look around the plane, I see plenty of excited, happy faces- young children with their parents, couples like Georgie and Marley, or Abbey-Gayle, Brooke or Ella and their boyfriends, all happy holiday goers… And then there’s me. I know I SHOULD be grateful- most people would give their right arm for a long holiday in Spain, after all, especially one paid for by their parents- but all I can think about is how I don’t belong in this plane, or in this friendship group of aspiring models and performers… Or how I don’t even belong in this skin.

After the plane lands and I disembark, I take a deep breath and try to relax. I am on holiday, after all- a time that exists solely to forget about the stresses of your everyday life- but as I stride through the airport, I feel all my stresses returning in force. Even though I’m surrounded by the other girls, all of whom are very good looking, the sight of a sixteen year old blonde wearing a tight tank top and a tiny pair of shorts will grab the attention of any straight guy, and there are plenty of eyes pointed straight at my chest, backside and legs. And I know, deep down, that the worst is yet to come.

Sure enough, after checking into our hotel, our group heads down to the beach, where eight pairs of eyes look expectantly in my direction.

“Oh come on, Kayleigh-Ann!” Ella pleads. “You’re not going to get a tan like THAT!”

“Yeah!” Abbey-Gayle giggles. “You’ve got a smoking hot body, show it off!” I force yet another smile on my face, before removing my shorts and my tank top to reveal my skimpy dark blue bikini… Which draws yet more male eyes to my body.

“I still can’t believe you haven’t got your navel pierced yet,” Brooke laughs as we head onto the sand.

“Yeah,” Ella laughs. “Like, if it wasn’t for your tits, you’d almost think you were a boy!”

“I wouldn’t go THAT far,” I retort, trying hard to not let Ella know that she’s just paid me one of the biggest compliments I’ve ever heard.

“Good,” Ella giggles. “Because I am making it my personal mission to ensure that at some point within the next three days, you are getting L-A-I-D!” Good luck with that, I think to myself. If the only man I’ve ever connected with in any way couldn’t get into my pants, then some random stranger on a Spanish beach CERTAINLY isn’t. And the only men’s pants I want to get into… Are my own.

After I split from Ollie, I didn’t get the opportunity to dress as ‘Ian’ for almost three weeks, despite my therapist’s insistence that I try to find time to express my ‘inner boy’. Mum- scared by my nearly breaking my own foot, which I supposed is understandable- began regularly barging into my room uninvited on the grounds of ‘checking I was okay’, which obviously meant that I had to stay in my girl clothes 24/7. Even worse, after ‘making sure I was okay’, mum would then decide to stick around, to help me rehearse for a play, to help me sew ribbons onto my new pointe shoes, to paint my nails… Over the last six months, mum has been more of a mother to be than she’d ever been in the preceding sixteen years. I even began to think that if mum had acted more like a mother and less like a coach for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t even need to be ‘Ian’- but then, inevitably, she’d do something to remind me that my name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann, and deep down, I truly am NOT a girl.

Dad, of course, remained as indifferent as ever, barely acknowledging my existence, and the only time he seemed to say my name was during his frequent arguments with mum- arguments that took place right on the other side of the wall from where my bed is placed, meaning my favourite stuffed giraffe gained a LOT of new teeth marks over the past six months, never more so than on the 24th of June- the night of my prom.

In all the ‘excitement’ about my exams, I’d almost forgotten that the school holds an annual formal dance for students leaving after their final year, but the second my final exam finished, my mum picked me up and whisked me straight to the nearest boutique to pick up a formal gown. And when I say ‘pick up a’ I of course mean ‘try on hundreds and hundreds before eventually settling on one’. I wore more dresses during the course of that week than I’d done during the previous three years, and each one just made me more and more stressed until I felt like my skin was about to literally catch fire.

On the day before my prom, mum- accompanied, of course, by Abbey-Gayle and her gang, who saw me as their own personal Barbie doll for the week leading up to the prom- took me to a tanning salon, where my entire body was covered in thick, dark spray tan. My nails were then sculpted into long, slender ovals and painted a dusky red colour, my make-up was professionally applied, my hair- which at that point, hadn’t been cut in five months- was treated with numerous conditioners, sculpted into a cute, feminine pixie cut and adorned with fashionable highlights. I pulled on a strapless bra and a skimpy thong, and slipped my feet into a pair of sparkly, high-heeled sandals. Last, but not least, came my dress- a floor-length, strapless gown in dark blue with a narrow, laced-in bodice and a voluminous skirt. I was BEAUTIFUL, and it wasn’t just my friends who thought so, my peers at school definitely thought so too- I was third in the vote for ‘prom queen’ (Maisie, as captain of the cheerleading team, obviously came out on top)- and my ‘date’ for the prom undoubtedly thought so.

Maisie set me up with Kyle, one of her boyfriend’s friends from the football team (Maisie, as head cheerleader, was dating the captain of the school’s football team proving that some stereotypes aren’t constrained to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean), who was one of the smaller (the same height as me when barefoot), shyer boys. Maisie was confident that he wouldn’t try anything with me unless he was given explicit permission, which obviously wasn’t going to happen. Nonetheless, at the end of the night, in our limo ride home, Kyle surprised me with a long, wet kiss, and his hands quickly found their way onto my waist before slowly creeping upward. If I hadn’t slapped them away, I honestly believe I would have been freed of my dress even earlier than I had planned. Fortunately, Kyle didn’t force the issue, but he had a very, very angry look on his face that made me tremble as he got out of the limo, which made me feel like I was an inch tall- especially as memories of Ollie and our Valentine’s ‘date’ came flooding back.

I cried myself to sleep that night and the following three nights, and nearly bit my stuffed giraffe’s leg clean off. If I’d worn earrings to my prom, the pins of them would have ended the night stuck in my wrists, not my ears.

A week after my prom, mum came back into my room to ‘check on me’… And to give me details of another boy she liked the look of. I swore to myself at that point that I would never, ever have anything sexually to do with any men.

“How about him?” Ella asks, pointing toward a tall, tanned man with dark brown hair and a bulging six pack (which, horrifyingly, isn’t the only part of him that’s bulging).

“Pass,” I say, making Ella laugh with frustration.

“Oh come on, Kayleigh-Ann!” The tall Australian girl pleads. “Don’t you feel, you know, left out? I mean, you’re the only girl on this holiday without a boyfriend, ever since you split from Ollie and Ian it’s like no man’s good enough for you!”

“No man is,” I shrug, smirking at my ‘technical truth’.

“But surely you miss sex, right?” Ella asks. “There’s only so much you can, you know, ‘get’ out of sitting on a washing machine…”

“I’m in no rush,” I say, laying back and trying to relax despite the attention that’s being paid to my bikini-clad body.

“I swear,” Ella says firmly. “I WILL find a guy you approve of before this holiday is over.” I snort derisively at Ella’s confidence, before turning my attention back to the other three girls, all of whom are frolicking in the sea with their boyfriends.

As a wave of water washes over them, a wave of envy washes over me- it would be so easy for me to simply give in to Ella’s demands. Whether I like it or not, I AM cute. A lifetime of gymnastics and dancing has left me with a body most women would die for, and most men would give their right arm to have. Even if I wanted a more sensitive boyfriend, like Brooke’s boyfriend Andrew, that wouldn’t be too much of a problem. But the mere thought of a man touching me in any way, especially the way Marley is mauling Georgie in her swimsuit with its barely-there thong back, just sends chills down my spine. Even if I wanted it to be true, the fact remains that my name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann, and I am NOT a girl.

By the end of the evening, my body is nice and tanned, though my efforts to cover it back up with my tank top and shorts are thwarted when Abbey-Gayle announces that all of us are going to a posh restaurant for dinner, meaning that when I emerge from my hotel room, I’m wearing a tiny, loose halter neck dress that shows off virtually all of my slender bronzed legs. The other girls are all similarly attired, of course, whilst the boys are all wearing smart trousers, not displaying any skin below their waists. The sheer injustice of it makes me clench my fists in frustration, though as always, I force a smile on my face as we take our seats at the restaurant.

As the meal wears on, my mind beings to wander. The conversation is dominated by the girls, of course, with the boys all looking on with almost convincing faked interest (it’s painfully obvious what they’re REALLY thinking about when they look at the girls). I’m not sure whether it’s better or worse when the girls all go outside to smoke, leaving me alone with the four boys, as the boys immediately take the opportunity to start talking about sport and videogames- both things I love- but make no effort to include me in the conversation.

By the time we all return to the hotel, I’ve barely said ten words, and the four couples are in so much of a hurry to get to ‘bed’ that I’m abandoned almost immediately as I walk into the hotel lobby. After returning to my hotel room, in the absence of my stuffed giraffe, I clench my pillow between my teeth and silently scream, trying desperately to relieve my frustration at the ridiculousness of the situation.

“Kayleigh-Ann…” A familiar West Indian voice whispers in my ear, waking me from my slumber. “Kayleigh-Ann, wake up!”

“Mmph,” I moan as I wake up, feeling almost hungover from last night’s stress. “What is it?”

“Get up, get dressed, quick!” Abbey-Gayle giggles as she pulls the sheets off my body.

“Why, exactly?” I ask.

“Shower! Make-up! Clothes!” Brooke commands, all but shoving me into my en-suite. After showering, applying as little make-up as I think I can get away with and pulling on my most modest, comfortable bikini followed by a trusty pair of shorts, I head out of my en-suite and am immediately dragged along the corridor to Ella’s room.

“OMG Kayleigh-Ann,” Georgie- who, like yesterday, is barely wearing anything- snorts. “Why are you, like, wearing a- wearing so much clothes?”

“Oh, leave her alone,” Brooke says. “The shorts will come off once we get to the beach, right, Kayleigh-Ann?”

“Right,” I laugh, inwardly screaming that yet again, I’ll be forced to put my body on display for virtually the entire population of Spain.

“Keep quiet,” Abbey-Gayle whispers as she slowly opens Ella’s door.

“What are we doing here, anyway?” I ask.

“You’ll see,” Abbey-Gayle giggles. “Kayleigh-Ann, you grab her right leg. Georgie- you get her left leg.” Georgie and I both nod, and when we see Ella laid on her back in her bed, I immediately position myself by her left leg to avoid the inevitable left/right argument with the dim-witted Georgie.

“Now!” Abbey-Gayle yells, startling the sleeping Ella awake. Immediately, the four of us spring to action, each grabbing one of the tall girl’s limbs before she has a chance to react.

“What- what are you doing?” Ella moans. “Where’s Shaun?”

“The boys took care of him,” Abbey-Gayle says smugly. “Do you remember last year, when Dannii Samson and her gang went to Spain, they made a video?”

“Yeah, but- oh no,” Ella moans. “Oh god, you’ve got to be kidding me, I’m in my nightie for fuck's sake!”

“Like, so?” Georgie asks.

“Like, see-through?” Ella asks, before sighing. “Okay… Let me change into my bikini and I’ll let you throw me in the pool.”

“Hmm… Okay,” Abbey-Gayle says with a smug grin. The four of us release Ella, who skips the short distance back to her room, re-emerging later with her dark blue bikini in place and a wide grin on her face.

“Don’t smile so much!” Brooke admonishes the blonde girl. “This is supposed to be spontaneous!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Ella grimaces, before grimacing and pretending to struggle against our grip.

Needless to say, our ‘performance’ attracts plenty of attention- especially from those with smartphones- and I play my part to perfection as we reach the hotel’s small pool, forcing out a genuine-sounding laugh as we hurl Ella into it. Of course, in keeping with our efforts to repeat last year’s viral video, Abbey-Gayle, Brooke, Georgie and I immediately join Ella in the pool, before being chased off by the hotel’s manager.

Twenty minutes later, after we’ve all decamped to the beach, I let out a long sigh as I slide off my shorts, which have been thoroughly wrecked by the chlorinated water of the swimming pool and will probably never fit me again.

“Problem, Kayleigh-Ann?” Ella asks as she stretches out on her sun lounger.

“Ugh,” I spit. “These were my favourite shorts. ‘Were’ being the word…”

“Ah, you’ll get more,” Ella giggles. “Now you might actually show off those awesome dancer’s legs of yours!” I force out a giggle- Ella obviously intended what she said to be a compliment, little knowing how deeply it cuts me.

“Ella…” I mumble. “Why- why did you let us throw you in the pool? I mean- god, I dunno…”

“Ah, it’s just a bit of fun, you know?” Ella replies. “And you never know, our video might go viral, get us noticed… If we’re REALLY lucky, might even get the rest of us signed by Joshua Benedict!”

“Even those of us who AREN’T models?” I ask.

“Now you’ve left school, you’ll get work,” Ella shrugs. “I’m surprised you haven’t already found yourself an agent, for your acting if nothing else.”

“I’m… Just, you know, wanting to enjoy my holiday,” I reply. In truth, the thought of finding an agent chills me to the bone- I’ve spent my whole life wishing I hadn’t been forced into doing all these performing arts. Getting an agent would turn it into an unwanted hobby into a profession- and potentially, my entire life.

“Oh, I DEFINITELY get that!” Ella giggles. “Of course, the best way to enjoy your holiday is to find yourself a hot boy to cling on to!”

“If you say so,” I sigh.

“You’re really not interested in any of the guys on the beach?” Ella asks. “I mean, I would ask if you wanted me to find a girl for you, but seeing as you were juggling two boys earlier in the year, that kinda answers any questions there… Even if, you know, between your hair and your lack of make-up, you do kinda look a bit boyish!” I open my mouth to respond to the tall Australian girl, but stop just short of saying ‘thanks’.

“If you say so,” I say, running my slender fingers through my hair. “Hair’s grown a lot the last few months though.”

“It’ll be as long as mine soon,” Ella laughs, playfully tossing her extra-long blonde tresses before tying them back into a tight ponytail. “Kayleigh-Ann... Are you REALLY not interested in any of the boys on the beach? I mean, you’re tall, you’re hot, I’m sure you could have your pick of any of them.”

“REALLY not interested,” I confirm.

“Kayleigh-Ann…” Ella whispers. “Is- is everything, you know, okay? I mean, I know you still see your counsellor… Not all boys are like Ollie, I promise you that.”

“That’s for damn sure,” I sigh as I watch Marley and Georgie frolicking in the surf, the tall boy’s hands being just as ‘adventurous’ as they were yesterday.

“What do you and your counsellor talk about, anyway?” Ella asks.

“Seriously?” I retort, making Ella grimace.

“Sorry, sorry,” the tall girl sighs. “I just- we’re friends, you know? A few months from now, we may even be Angels… I want to know what I can do to help.”

“If I thought there was anything you could do, I’d ask,” I sigh. However, it’s pretty unlikely that Ella’s able to issue a prescription for a course of hormone treatment. Unfortunately, neither is my counsellor…

Over the last few months, my meeting with Dr Williamson have been equal parts helpful and frustrating. Having someone- a professional, no less- to unburden myself onto is a great relief. She listens to my stresses, helps with them and never judges. However, as she’s made clear on several occasions, she isn’t able to provide a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and most certainly isn’t able to prescribe any hormone treatments without parental consent. As I’m sixteen, I could simply ‘emancipate’ myself from my parents by moving out, living with a friend (such as Ella), but then that’d raise a million other problems, with money being first and foremost. I still don’t have a weekend job, as the only ones I’ve seen are either as a waitress, tottering around everywhere in a short skirt and high heels, or working behind the perfume or make-up counter in Boots, which is obviously not an option (and my vegan parents obviously would never approve of me working in a fast food restaurant).

As such, the only source of income I have remains my parents- who stipulate, of course, that I spend the money on cosmetics and clothes- and the only chance I ever have of being ‘Ian’ is whenever I have the house to myself, which is far too infrequent for my tastes.

And of course, I’m never going to get the chance to be ‘Ian’ whilst laid in a bikini on a sun lounger in Spain, as I’m reminded every time a boy walks past and ogles my hairless bronzed body. The five of us spend the rest of the afternoon on the beach either sunning, swimming or playing volleyball (something that doesn’t last long after Ella and I repeatedly beat the much shorter Brooke and Georgie), before heading back to the hotel to change into yet another loose dress for yet another evening meal. Despite Abbey-Gayle and Ella’s attempts to get me to join them in trying to get into a bar or nightclub, I head back to the hotel room, where I fall asleep putting yet more teeth marks in the hotel’s pillows.

Our third day in Spain goes much the same as the previous two days- sun, sea and sand- though I find my stress levels growing ever more with each pair of male eyes that mentally undresses my bikini-clad body. It doesn’t help that today is Monday, the day I normally see Dr Williamson, so instead of spending today working through my problems, all I end up doing is adding to them, to the extent that when we return to the hotel, it takes all of my willpower not to hurl myself head-first into the pool. I decide to skip dinner in favour of an early night- we have an early flight home- and spend the evening packing my suitcase, which is possibly the first enjoyable thing I’ve done all weekend.

“Oh my god!” Georgie squeaks as we head to the check-in desk at Cadiz airport the following morning. “That was SO the best holiday EVER!”

“I know!” Brooke giggles. “I SO can’t wait to come back next year… At the expense of our agency, of course!”

“Have you found the pool video yet?” Ella asks excitedly.

“Not yet,” Abbey-Gayle replies. “But it’ll be on there!” I force out a giggle along with the other girls as Abbey-Gayle searches for Ella’s dunking video on her phone, though as I look to my right, I feel a pang of jealousy as I see the other four girls’ boyfriends stood off to one side, gossiping about a topic I can’t quite hear, but I know deep down I’ll find more interesting than the girls’ conversation.

During the holiday, I’d tried to relax, tried to allow myself to believe that life as a girl isn’t so bad, that maybe in a more relaxed environment I could get on with the girls, and by extension, actually enjoy bring a girl for the first time in my life. There were a couple of moments that made me hope this would be the case, too- Sunday morning’s conversation with Ella being top of that list. And yet, as we board the plane- with me constantly having to straighten my short skirt after my shorts were predictably destroyed in the pool- I find myself more desperate than ever to just strip away all my ‘girl layers’ until all that’s left is Ian- the boy I’m desperate to be.

I tune out the conversation the surrounds me all throughout the flight home, and once we land back in England, I immediately grab my luggage and bid the girls a quick farewell before heading straight home. Both my parents are on holiday themselves, and will be for the rest of the week, so the instant I finish unpacking, I scrub away my make-up, strip off ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s clothes and pull on the jeans and t-shirt that I have come to associate with comfort and happiness. Sure, having my breasts squashed by an elastic bandage isn’t exactly ‘comfortable’, but that feeling goes straight out of the window when I look in the mirror and see the boy inside staring back at me.

“My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann,” I say with a confident smile as I clamp my Arsenal cap to my head. “I am NOT a girl.”

I head downstairs to the living room, where I collapse on the sofa and immediately relax in a way I simply wasn’t able to in Spain. With mum and dad away until Saturday, I’ll be able to spend three whole days as Ian- just long enough for forget that when they’re back, I’ll have to become ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ once again. After a disgusting lunch of vegetables and grains, I relax back down on the sofa… And I suddenly realise that this is the first time in a while that I’ve been ‘Ian’ for a prolonged period of time, and more importantly, the first prolonged ‘Ian’ session I’ve had when I’ve been alone- and I’m at a loss as to what to do.

After pulling on my most androgynous trainers, I had out onto the busy streets of London, heading to the nearest shopping mall to buy some REAL food, but the mere act of stepping in the mall’s front entrance causes a wave of emotion to crash over me- this is the exact same place where I had my first proper encounter with Ollie, the place where ‘Ian’ was truly born. Ollie wasn’t just my fake boyfriend, he was- or at least, I thought he was- my best friend, and ‘Ian’s only friend…

Subconsciously, I reach for my smartphone, and open up Facebook, quickly locating Ollie’s profile. I open up the window to type a new private message to him, but I pause before typing anything. Ollie was the only friend Ian ever had… But he also betrayed him- no, betrayed ME. He saw ME as a piece of meat, a sex object, and when he was denied sex he tried to force the issue and I ended up in hospital. Just like every other man, he only thought with his genitals- though Georgie’s actions in the Spanish surf with her boyfriend shows that sex-obsessed behaviour isn’t solely a male trait. And whether I like it or not, Abbey-Gayle, Brooke, Georgie and Ella ARE my friends… Or rather, they’re ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s friends. If they saw me out, dressed the way I am right now, I doubt they’d still be ‘her’ friends for long. And it’s not even like they’re particularly good friends- their interest in Kayleigh-Ann is purely out of the belief that being part of a ‘clique’ will gain them the fame and recognition they so desperately crave- and that my parents crave for me.

And yet, with school now over for good, they are the only friends that Kayleigh-Ann- or rather, they’re the only friends that I still have. And later tonight, I’m going to strip off ‘Ian’s clothes, pull on a clingy, sweaty pair of pink tights, a skin-tight black leotard and dance around a room with all of my friends until my feet ache and my toes bleed. The mere thought makes my skin crawl so much that I immediately browse away from Ollie’s profile and to that of our dance teacher, leaving a hastily-worded message explaining that I won’t be able to attend, claiming that I picked up a stomach bug whilst away. This lowers my stress levels enough that I’m able to eat my burger and go home, where I once again crash on the sofa, once again at a completely loose end.

After an early dinner that was just as revolting as the lunch that had been left for me, I head back up to my room to try to relax on my bed, but my bedroom is so unapologetically feminine that I only stay on the bed for less than thirty seconds before jumping up and heading back downstairs. As much as they frustrate me, at least my parents are always- well, almost always- there for me, and as much as they irritate me, at least Abbey-Gayle’s gang are always up for a chat- even if I have no interest whatsoever in the topics they chat about. With no home- not a proper one, anyway- no family and no friends, if I’m going to become Ian, I’m going to have to do it from scratch, from the ground up.

I grab my laptop and log onto the internet, briefly looking at flats in London, but the rent on all of them is so extortionate there’s no way I’d be able to afford them even if I got a full-time job, let alone a part-time job. I even look at homeless shelters in my local area, but the more I research living independently, the more stressed out I get, until after a mere fifteen minutes, I find myself laid on my bed with my stuffed giraffe’s leg between my teeth. As I bite down, however, I see my reflection in my mirror… And I see just how ridiculous I look. No sixteen year old boy should ever look the way I do now, with a stuffed toy hanging from their mouth. Hell, no sixteen year old girl should, for that matter. But it’s not like I have any other option- well, apart from let the stress boil up until I explode, or worse yet, look in the bathroom for dad’s razor and use that on my wrists.

One thing’s for certain, though- things can’t continue the way they’re going. I’ve only been by myself for less than twelve hours but already the loneliness is starting to get to me. Either that, or the fear of what will happen when my parents return- not their reaction at seeing ‘Ian’, but the fact that I’ll have to put Ian aside and return to being Kayleigh-Ann, with her ballet classes, her fledgling modelling career, her intense parental pressure, her skimpy underwear, her tights, her dresses, her make-up…

I feel myself start to hyperventilate as I make my way down the stairs, and my the time I reach the sofa, I’m having a full-fledged panic attack. I know I need to talk to someone, and urgently, but I can’t speak to anyone as ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ without causing myself more stress, and my counsellor’s office closed an hour ago so she won’t be available. With no other options, I grab my smartphone and look down my contacts list for the number for The Samaritans (which I’d saved for an occasion such as this one), when another number catches my eye- Grandma’s number. Not Grandma Walker, of course, but Grandma Jones- my mother’s mother, who lives in Cardiff.

I open up my grandmother’s contact details and prepare to dial her number, but I pause before pressing the button- what do I say to her? What am I meant to tell her, how am I supposed to make her understand what I’m going through? Do I just say ‘hey grandma, I’m feeling really depressed because I wish I was a boy’? How on Earth is she supposed to respond to that?

I drop my phone and collapse back onto the sofa, cradling my head in my hands as I try to sniff back my tears. Boys don’t cry. Boys DO NOT cry. They don’t get emotional- well, unless it’s about football, anyway- they take their problems and they work them through logically. Fact: I don’t want to go back to being Kayleigh-Ann. If I do, the chances of me self-harming or doing something even more stupid… Well, let’s just say they’re not insignificant. Fact: I can’t stay as Ian, at least not when my parents return. Fact: I can’t call anyone to tell them about my stresses. Anyone who’d understand isn’t available to talk to, and there’s no one in London I can talk to face-to-face. This leaves me only one option…

“Yes, yes, I’m coming,” the voice of the elderly Welsh woman calls as I knock on the door. “Do you know what time it is? If this is another pizza for next door I swear I’ll- Kayleigh-Ann?”

“Hi, grandma,” I say in a quiet, trembling voice.

“What are you doing here?” Grandma asks. “And why are you dressed like that?”

“It’s-“ I sniffle as tears start to flow from my eyes. “It’s a long-“ Before I can continue, I’m silenced by a long, tight hug from my grandmother, who wordlessly leads me into her living room.

“Oh, Kayleigh-Ann,” Grandma sighs as she sits me on her sofa. “I do worry about you at times, especially since that unfortunate incident with your wrists- which I’m trusting you HAVEN’T repeated?”

“No,” I whisper. “Though- though I’ve come close…” I sob and let more tears flow from my eyes as grandma gives me another gentle hug.

“More boy troubles?” Grandma asks.

“Umm… You might say that,” I say, my heart racing as I prepare to reveal all to the elderly woman.

“Kayleigh-Ann,” Grandma whispers. “Are- are you feeling okay? You look pale as a ghost, and not just because you’re not wearing any make-up… What’s this boy done to you? Should- should we call the police? Is this why you’re wearing boy’s clothes?”

“No boy’s done anything to me,” I whisper. “It- I- I, um, it’s be easier if I just came out and said it, the reason why I’ve been so stressed, so depressed…”

“Go on,” Grandma whispers.

“I…” I say, holding back a wave of nausea as I try to force the words out. What if grandma doesn’t understand? Worse yet, what if she calls my parents? As the millions of worries flow through my brain, however, one simple fact becomes clear- however grandma reacts, things couldn’t possibly be any worse than if I don’t say anything right here, right now.

“I…” I continue. “I always wish… I always wish that I’d been born a boy.” I pause briefly to allow grandma respond, but all she does is nod gently, giving me my cue to continue. “When- when I’m, you know, being a girl, I feel so stressed, so tense, it’s like there’s so much expected of me, I have to act a certain way, I have to look a certain way, and it just feels alien to me, it feels so wrong… Like I hate every aspect of myself, every part of my body just for being the gender I am, and I-“ I’m silenced by yet another hug from Grandma, who allows me to gently weep onto her shoulder.

“Kayleigh-Ann,” Grandma whispers. “When- when you made that, um, that mark on your wrist, is it because- because you wished that you were a boy?”

“Yes,” I whisper, my hands shaking as the adrenaline thins in my blood.

“When I was your age,” Grandma says, “any girl who says that she wished she was a boy would get a clout around the ear. Good thing it’s 2016 and not 1961, isn’t it?”

“You- you don’t mind this?” I ask, gesturing to my masculine appearance.

“Why should I mind?” Grandma shrugs. “It’s your life, you have to live it the way you see fit. If life as a girl is causing you to make marks on your wrists then you shouldn’t be expected to live your life as a girl. Are you really, really happier as a boy?”

“Much happier,” I whisper. “I feel so much freer, like there’s no pressure on me, no expectations…”

“And are you sure that these ‘pressures’ are because you’re a girl,” grandma asks, “and not because of your mother’s expectations?”

“I…” I say, before sighing. “I’m not 100% sure. My counsellor asked me the same thing…”

“You’ve been seeing a counsellor?” Grandma asks.

“On and off for the last six months,” I reply. “All I know is that merely wearing girls’ clothes makes me want to tear off my skin, but dressed like this… I feel happier, and more confident… Confident enough to tell you about ‘Ian’, heh.”

“Who’s ‘Ian’?” Grandma asks, making me grimace.

“Ah, he’s- that’s…” I say. “’Ian’ is my ‘boy name’. It’s the last two syllables of my first name… I always hated the name ‘Kayleigh-Ann’, especially as everybody always uses both parts…”

“I never liked it either,” Grandma says with a warm smile, before extending her hand for me to shake. “And it’s very, very nice to meet you, ‘Ian’!”

“Th- thanks,” I say, smiling genuinely for the first time in a very, very long time.

“I take it your parents aren’t aware of ‘Ian’?” Grandma asks.

“Nope,” I sigh. “If I told mum she’d go ballistic, try to guilt me into being a girl again like she always does… Dad would just go scurrying off to Grandma- my other Grandma- who’d yell at me and try to exorcise me or something.”

“I always hated that dreadful woman,” Grandma spits.

“Me too,” I say, before stifling a yawn.

“Oh god, Kay- I’m sorry, Ian,” Grandma says. “You must be exhausted after that train ride. I’m guessing you didn’t bring any clothes with you?”

“I’m wearing the only clothes ‘Ian’ owns,” I sigh.

“Do you have any money in your bank account?” Grandma asks.

“Umm, a couple of hundred pounds,” I say.

“Then tomorrow, we’re going to Primark, and we’re getting you some proper clothes!” Grandma announces.

“Um,” I say, “but I’ll have nowhere at home to put them, and I’ll never get any chance to wear them…”

“You let me worry about that,” Grandma says. “You just get upstairs and get yourself to bed, IAN.” I smile, before yawning again, nosing and heading upstairs to Grandma’s spare room. I strip down to my plain grey jockey shorts and untie the bandage from around my chest, breathing a sigh of relief as my sore breasts hang free.

After my long day, it doesn’t long for me to fall asleep, and the next thing I’m aware of is the smell of freshly-brewed coffee wafting into my nostrils.

“Mmm…” I sleepily moan.

“Good morning, Ian,” Grandma whispers, making my heart beat faster as I realise that I’m still wearing my jockey shorts, and when I open my eyes, in addition to my coffee, I see my jeans and t-shirt neatly laid out on a chair next to my bed.

“M- morning,” I say, making an effort to lower my voice to a more masculine pitch.

“Come on, drink your coffee,” Grandma urges. “I’ve got a plate of bacon and eggs waiting downstairs for you once you’re washed and dressed. Boys like you need to keep their strength up, after all!” I laugh excitedly as I sip my coffee, before- as Grandma urged- washing myself thoroughly, pulling on the clothes I wore yesterday (including my uncomfortable bandage) and heading downstairs, where my truly delicious-smelling breakfast is waiting for me.

“This is so amazing,” I say, choking back tears as I savour every bite of my breakfast. “Thank you so much for all this, Grandma.”

“You’re very welcome, Ian,” Grandma says with a warm smile. “Whilst you were asleep I did some Googling, I looked up ‘gender dysphoria’- that’s the right term for what you- well, I would say ‘have’, but that makes it sound like an illness, something that can be cured…”

“It’s the right term, yes,” I say. “My counsellor’s said she wants to get to the root cause of my stress before she’s confident enough to issue a formal diagnosis of it- and even then, there’s nothing anyone can do about it without the permission of my parents…”

“The websites I read said that that was also a major part of the process,” Grandma whispers. “Telling your parents…”

“The- the thought of going back to being a girl, being ‘Kayleigh-Ann’…” I mumble, shivering in terror.

“Ian,” Grandma says in a soft, kind voice. “If it hurts you that much to be a girl, then I promise I will do everything in my power to ensure that you never live another second of your life as a woman.”

“Th- thank you,” I say, wiping a tear from my eye.

“And if you’d like,” Grandma says, “you can stay with me for the rest of the summer holidays as ‘Ian’.”

“R-really?” I ask, my jaw dropping at the offer. “But what about mum and dad-“

“You let me worry about them,” Grandma says with a confident smile. “What’s most important is that you’re happy. And by ‘happy’ I of course mean ‘not doing anything stupid’!”

“No danger of that,” I laugh as I clean my plate. “That breakfast was SO good… I haven’t eaten bacon in ages, heh.”

“Your parents still have you on that modern rabbit food diet?” Grandma asks, tutting as I nod. “Well THAT ends now as well! I’ve got a joint of beef in the fridge that needs eating up, and you and I are eating it tonight. To celebrate the arrival of my new grandson!”

“This- this is like a dream,” I laugh. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you enough for all this. Even everything you’ve done so far is just so, so much.”

“Nonsense,” Grandma chuckles. “I’m your grandmother, which brings with it certain responsibilities. If you really want to thank me, promise me that you’ll never doing anything silly with any sharp objects ever again, okay?”

“I promise,” I say with a smile.

“Good,” Grandma says. “Now get your shoes on, Ian, we have some shopping to do!” I giggle as I head into the hallway to pull on my trainers, before following Grandma out to her car.

Two hours later, I return to Grandma’s house carrying bags full of clothes- full of PROPER clothes. I have new t-shirts, a new sweatshirt for winter, new jeans, a pair of smart trousers, two new button up shirts (that button up properly, like a man’s shirt), a pair of new, smart shoes and even a new, smart tie. Grandma also said that she ordered some ‘special’ vests off the internet, vests to help flatten my chest (hopefully in a more comfortable way than my bandage). She also made it clear that these are special treats, and not to expect many more of them (Grandma’s income obviously being limited to her pension). Anything I get in the future, I’ll have to pay for myself- meaning my new smart clothes may well see use soon at job interviews!

After putting away my new clothes, we head back down to Grandma’s car for the long drive to London. Grandma correctly pointed out that if my parents are to believe that ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ is staying with Grandma, it’ll look suspicious if ‘her’ things are all still at home. I actually have a smirk on my face as I throw ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s clothes into the suitcase, crumpling up ‘her’ skirts and dresses without a second thought, and bagging up ‘her’ cosmetics, knowing that there’s a chance I may never wear them again. Once I’m finished packing, I take one last look at my bedroom, with one thing in particular catching my eye.

“Sorry, Melman,” I sigh as I pick up the stuffed giraffe that’s been part of my life for almost a decade. “Won’t be needing you where I’m going.” I have a sad smile on my face as I snap off my bedroom light- this IS my home after all… But it’s not ‘Ian’s home. I’ve been given the chance to rebuild my life from the ground up as the boy I always wanted to be, and I’d be foolish not to take it.

“Are you ready, Ian?” Grandma asks.

“Yeah…” I say with a smile. “I think I am.” Grandma smiles as she leads me back to her car, and a few hours later, I’m back in my new bed in Cardiff, sleeping soundly despite the confrontation that awaits me tomorrow.

I’m woken early in the morning not by Grandma, or by the alarm on my phone, but by my phone notifying me of a new Facebook message. When I read the message, however, I realise that I have more than one confrontation ahead of me.

‘Happy birthday!!!!’ The message- which is from Abbey-Gayle- reads. Also in the chat are Brooke, Georgie and Ella- whose birthday is the one we’re celebrating. Worse yet, it’s her eighteenth birthday, the most significant of them all- and not only didn’t I get her a present, I’m also hundreds of miles away in Wales, so I won’t be able to attend her party… To say nothing of the fact that I’m also no longer the girl the other four think I am- or even a girl at all anymore.

‘Happy birthday Ella!’ I type, before biting my lip. ‘I’m sorry I can’t make it to your party tonight, I’m still feeling under the weather. Hope you have a great day!’ In my eagerness to become Ian, I’d almost forgotten that the departure of ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ will leave a hole in more than just my parents’ lives. However, I know that the girls will get on with their lives without me. Hell, the way I was treated whilst I was in the group, I doubt they’ll even notice that I’m gone.

‘Thanks, girlies!’ Ella’s reply appears on my scree. ‘That sucks that you can’t make it, Kayleigh-Ann. We’ll just have to have a special girly day, just the five of us, once you’re better!’ I smile sadly and type a smiling emoticon in response to Ella, even though I feel somewhat guilty as I know the girly day she’s talking about will never happen. It’s not like Ella won’t make other friends, and I’m sure I’ll make new friends as well as ‘Ian’- it just would’ve been nice if Ella could’ve been Ian’s friend too, but if I’m going to live this new, exciting life, some sacrifices will have to be made.

After the chat reaches a natural end- with me hardly contributing to it, as always (though given the circumstances, I don’t mind so much)- I head down to eat the breakfast Grandma prepared for me, before taking a deep breath as Grandma takes her phone and begins dialling a number.

“The sooner we do this, the sooner it’ll be over,” the wise elderly woman says. “Oh, hello Angela! Hope you and Craig are enjoying Singapore! Yes, I’m doing fine, thanks. I’m actually calling about Kayleigh-Ann.” I bristle slightly at the used of my old name, even though under the circumstances, its use is justified.

“No, she’s not in any trouble,” Grandma says, making me roll my eyes at mum’s assumption. “Yes, I think she did enjoy Spain, but she’s picked up a bit of a bug while she was out there so I picked her up and brought her back to Cardiff. That’s quite fine, Angela, I’m her grandmother, it’s part of the job.” This puts a smile on my face- mum is obviously feeling guilty about being on holiday whilst I’m ‘sick’ and is grateful to Grandma for looking after me.

“Yes…” Grandma says hesitantly. “Yes, she- she’s said she wants to stay in Cardiff for the rest of the holidays.” I grimace- this is obviously going to be the main ‘sticking point’ with mum. Mum’s always wanted me to go to a fancy performing arts college after school, then either study drama at university or (preferably) become a famous actress. As of today, the 18th of August, I still haven’t been accepted to study at any colleges in London, and if I stay in Cardiff for the rest of the holidays, I obviously won’t be.

“Well her health needs to come first,” Grandma says firmly in a voice I’ve heard before- the only voice that can silence my mother. “Yes, we’re following her food plan.” I suppress a giggle as Grandma flashes me a quick wink. “Yes, I’ll have her back to you ready for the start of college in September. I’ll let you get back to your holiday, it must be late where you are. Talk soon, Angela.” Grandma smiles as she hangs up the phone, and I smile as well- though Grandma can instantly see the sadness behind my smile.

“What’s the matter?” Grandma asks me. “You’ve got the rest of the summer, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I sigh. “But then in just a couple of weeks, it’ll be September…”

“Yes,” grandma says with a knowing grin. “Ian, I have no intention of sending you back to London if you don’t want to go.”

“…What?” I ask, shaking my head. “I- I’m sorry?”

“If that life makes you- well, makes you leave marks on your wrist,” Grandma says, “I’m going to make sure you never return to it, even if I have to raise you myself.”

“R-really?” I ask.

“Really,” Grandma says proudly. “Besides, when I say ‘raise’, it’s not like you need much ‘raising’, I mean, you’re sixteen, you’re practically an adult already! And as I get older, I could always use some extra help around the home… Especially from a strong, handsome young man!”

“But- but mum and dad-“ I stutter.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Grandma says. “I don’t need to be a therapist to see that over the last two days, you’ve been happier than I’ve ever known you, and I don’t need a fancy doctorate to know why. When you’re ready, WE will talk to your mum and dad and explain to them all about their SON. In the meantime, we’ll get you booked in with a counsellor here in Cardiff, we’ll get you a job, or enrolled on a course at college, we’ll make sure that Ian has everything HE needs to live a full, independent life, so that when he finally meets his mum and dad, there’ll be nothing they can do about it other than accept him as their son.”

“O-okay,” I say, shocked by the generosity and love being shown to me. “I- I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you, Grandma.”

“You know my one condition,” Grandma says. “The one thing you can do to thank me is to make your life happy and successful. And if I ever see any more marks on your wrist, I’ll have you sectioned myself!”

“You won’t, I promise,” I say, barely suppressing a giggle.

And over the course of the next few weeks, I didn’t as much as scream in frustration at any element of my new life in Wales. As grandma promised, she assumed parental responsibility for me, and I was enrolled in a further education college to study digital art (something I’ve always been interested in), I started a Saturday job in a videogame store, and I even opened a bank account- all under my new legal name of Ian David Freeman. My parents, of course, think I’m studying drama- but with every day that I wake up and pull on a pair of jockey shorts and jeans, I gain more and more confidence, more and more self-assuredness ahead of the inevitable confrontation.

I was registered with a new counsellor in Cardiff, who took all my information from Dr Williamson in London and continued my treatment. My new counsellor has said that they want a few more sessions to make sure that life as Ian is the remedy for my stress before diagnosing me with gender dysphoria and prescribing testosterone, but I’m confident that that will happen sooner rather than later. And as grandma’s now my legal guardian, I don’t need permission of either mum or dad before taking the hormones I crave- I only need the permission of Grandma, who has said she'll provide it the second I get my diagnosis.

Of course, that's not to say that all my problems are over, just because I'm wearing trousers. I still have the confrontation with my parents to 'look forward' to, not to mention the undoubtedly hysterical reaction of my other grandmother. I've still got to figure out how I'm going to disappoint Abbey-Gayle and her gang. And apart from my supportive grandmother, I'm all alone in a new city. But I know I can make friends. I WILL make friends. Friends who will accept Ian for who he is- rather than as a shortcut into the pants of a girl who no longer exists.

I've been blessed with a true miracle. This is an opportunity I don't intend to waste, because after years of repeating it to myself, I can finally, legally say that my name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann, and nor will it ever be again. I am NOT a girl, and have no intention of ever being one again.

My name IS Ian. I AM a boy. And anyone who doesn't like that fact, be they friend, foe or family... That's their problem. Ian is here to stay.

I yawn loudly as my alarm clock wakes me, and my yawns quickly turn to groans as I brush my growing blonde hair from my forehead and roll onto my sore, cramping stomach before grabbing my phone and switching off my alarm.

“That time already?” I sigh. “Couldn’t have given me one more week…” I moan as I swing my legs out of bed and pull on my plain grey dressing gown before padding downstairs to the kitchen. The day I’ve dreaded for weeks is finally here- my summer holiday is over. As I slide two slices of bread into the toaster, I check my Facebook my phone, and groan at the statuses I read.

‘omg y do I hav 2 b bk at colleg? lame,’ Georgie’s latest update reads in a style of writing that’s considerably more mature than her usual.

‘Back at college today, yawn,’ Brooke’s update reads. 'Least I get to spend all day with my boo!' I take a deep breath, before composing my own status update.

‘Starting college today,’ I type into my phone. ‘Here goes nothing!’ I grin as the status update almost immediately gets likes from all my friends before comments begin to appear underneath it.

‘Good luck, Kayleigh-Ann!’ Brooke’s comment reads, which I of course dutifully ‘like’.

‘Have fun, Kayleigh-Ann!’ Ella types, earning another like before she posts an immediate reply to her own comment. ‘Let us know if you meet any nice boys!’ I ‘like’ this comment as well, though the thought of any ‘boy’ touching me makes me shudder. Rather than read any further comments, I put my phone down on the kitchen table and let out a long, frustrated sigh.

My summer holiday- after my return from Spain, anyway- had been absolute bliss. Spending time in Cardiff with grandma, never once pulling on the tiniest scrap of female clothing, or wearing make-up, or dancing ballet, or eating any of my disgusting vegan diet... I’d actually prayed for the holiday not to end, but obviously, my prayers weren’t answered, and today I have to face the reality I’ve been so desperate to avoid.

“Stop moping!” A familiar Welsh accent chastises me as its owner walks into the kitchen. “You’ve known this day was coming for weeks now, so there’s no point in sulking about it!”

“I know,” I sigh.

“Besides,” grandma says with a warm grin, “teenage BOYS don’t pout, do they, Ian?”

“…I guess not,” I say, my frown turning into a smile as I’m addressed by the name that is now legally mine. “Have- have mum and dad called?”

“Not yet,” grandma says. “They’ll probably call while you’re at college. Did you put my mobile phone on charge?”

“Yeah,” I reply. “Should be fully done now.”

“I’d hoped I could go the rest of my life without needing one of those,” the seventy-four year old woman sighs. “But I suppose if I’m going to be responsible for you, I need to be able to be contacted. And so do you! So eat up and get dressed. And don’t. Panic! You’re a handsome young man, I know you’ll make friends quickly.”

“A handsome young ‘man’ whose internals are torturing ‘him’,” I moan as I slowly chew my toast.

“Well we’ll see what your counsellor says about that on Thursday,” grandma says. “In the meantime, you let me worry about your parents, you just concentrate on studying, getting the grades you need and, most importantly of all, making friends!”

“I will,” I say with a grin. “I just- I just hope that, you know, any friends I make… Won’t be like Ollie.” I shudder as I remember the only real friend ‘Ian’ ever had- or rather, supposedly had.

“They won’t be,” grandma says confidently. “And if they are, they’ll have to answer to me! Now go on, go and get dressed, you don’t want to be late on your first day!” I smile as I finish my breakfast and head back to my bedroom, stripping off my dressing gown and pyjamas before sighing as I stare at my naked reflection in the mirror- well, naked save for the string dangling between my legs, a string I hastily cover with a pair of jockey shorts, which, while tight, aren't nearly as tight as the things or panties I was forced to wear in my 'old life'. Next comes probably the most important piece of clothing, even though it isn't really 'clothes' as such- the elastic bandage I wear to suppress my chest. On doctor's orders, I don't wear it 24/7 and never wear it while I'm at home, but when I'm out and about, I truly feel naked without it. Next comes a pair of black men's socks- much thicker than the tights I used to wear to school and no less clingy, but somehow, they just feel so much better covering my feet than hosiery that covers my crotch.

Finally comes my favourite two bits of clothing- a pair of new, dark blue jeans, held up by a black leather belt (my waist still being much narrower than my hips) and a plain dark red t-shirt. After slipping my feet into a pair of androgynous grey trainers, I stare at myself in the mirror, and despite my nerves, I smile a wide, satisfied grin.

With my ‘look’ complete, I can’t help but think back to this time twelve months ago, when I was getting dressed ahead of the first day of my final year of school. Even though our school had a uniform code, it wasn’t nearly as strict as it could have been, meaning that- within reason, obviously- girls were allowed to wear some make-up (though obviously not loads), they could wear varying colours and shades of tights and their skirts could be shorter or longer than the standard knee-length mandated by other schools. ‘Kayleigh-Ann’, of course, had an image to live up to, meaning that every day I went to school, I smeared foundation over my face, followed by mascara and eyeliner, pulled on stretchy and translucent black tights and rolled the waistband of my skirt to make it as short as I could get away with. And every day I dressed like that, I felt myself getting more and more stressed, like the clothes were squeezing the life out of me. Now, in my jeans and t-shirt, I feel free for the first time in my life.

That’s not to say that I’m not nervous, of course, and as grandma drops me off at the front entrance of the college, I’m almost hyperventilating, I’m panicking that much.

“Take several deep breaths,” grandma advises. “Everyone in that building is a potential friend, don’t forget that.”

“Everyone in there is also a potential transphobe,” I moan. “And it’s not like I can hide who I am forever… I’m amazed they allowed me to use the boys’ toilets.”

“Well they could hardly let you use the GIRLS’ toilets, dressed like that, could they?” Grandma says, making me giggle.

“I suppose not,” I reply.

“So there you go,” grandma says. “Ian- this is going to happen whether you like it or not. You’re going to go into that college, you’re going to sit down at a desk, listen to your teachers or whatever they have in college, and start learning. You may as well try to enjoy it.”

“The same could’ve been said about being a girl,” I mumble, momentarily silencing the elderly woman.

“Yes, yes, it could,” grandma concedes. “But unlike that, this IS something you actually want to do. You couldn’t choose your gender, but you DID choose this college, and this course, and you will see it through. Okay?”

“Okay,” I say with a smile, before clamping my trusty Arsenal FC hat to my head, grabbing my bag and leaving the car, only looking back once as I head into the vast college building. As it’s the first day of the new school year, there’s a long queue for the reception desks to receive our college IDs and timetables. I take a deep breath as I line up behind a group of four girls the same age as me, all of whom are wearing heavy make-up, short skirts and are seemingly saturated in a cloud of sweet-smelling perfume. It’s clear that all the boys- well, all the other boys, anyway- are VERY interested in these girls, and more importantly, not interested in me at all. With my plain, make-up free face, short hair and slouchy clothes, I couldn’t be any more different from the girls in front if I tried (and I have tried, really hard), even though beneath our skin, we’re fundamentally the same.

This contrast puts a smile on my face that stays even as I approach the reception desk and hand over my registration forms. My smile falters, however, when I remember that whilst the letter gives my name as ‘Ian David Freeman’, it also gives my legal gender as ‘female’- which is how it will remain for some time.

“Thank you, umm, Mi- mi-“ The receptionist stammers as she sees the contradiction on the form.

“Mister Freeman,” I say firmly.

“Mister Freeman,” the receptionist says with a kind smile. “Stand in front of the camera, please.” I smile as I stand in front of the camera, which flashes to let me know that my picture has been taken. “Would- would you like to review the information before I print it out?”

“Sure,” I say hesitantly, aware that none of the other students have been asked this question (and aware that the students in the queue behind me know this too). The receptionist turns her monitor to face me, and immediately I see what she’s referring to, as underneath the line that reads ‘DoB 30/12/1999’ is a line that reads ‘Gender F’.

“Can- can you change that?” I ask as I discreetly point to the ‘F’ on the screen. “I, um, mean, um, are you allowed to-“

“Of course,” the receptionist whispers, deleting the ‘F’ and replacing it with an ‘M’. If only it were that simple… I think to myself. Mere seconds later, my student ID is printed out, immortalising the line ‘Gender M’ on a laminated piece of cardboard that I don’t think I’ll ever throw away, even after I leave the college.

The rest of the morning is spent in a large lecture hall in what can only be described as like a school assembly, where we’re briefed on various mundane things including the fire evacuation process and the locations of the toilets. By the end of the ‘lecture’, I’m so tired and hungry that I head straight to the dining hall for lunch, but when I enter the vast room, I suddenly feel very, very small and alone. It’s not like the hall is any bigger or more crowded than the one in my old school, and it’s not like I’m not used to being on my own as Ian, as I have a Saturday job (which I obviously don’t do with grandma looking over my shoulder), but this place just feels… Different. Almost like every pair of eyes in the room is fixated on my body. Logically, of course, I know that this is just paranoia, the little voice in the back of my head saying ‘you don’t belong here’ that I can’t silence no matter how hard I try, no matter how many time I repeat the simple fact that my name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann and I am NOT a girl, my name IS Ian and I AM a boy.

Nonetheless, before I join the dinner queue I decide to cover up by pulling my jacket and my hat back on in the hope that this will detract attention from me, even though most of the other teenagers in the room are in their shirt sleeves. However, as I approach the front of the queue, it’s not my jacket that gets the most attention.

“Nice hat!” One of the boys in the queue chuckles, and as I’m the only one in the queue wearing a hat, it’s obvious that the compliment was intended for me.

“Thanks,” I say with a grin. “You a fan?”

“Only my whole life,” the boy laughs. “Who’s your favourite player?”

“Toss-up between Walcott, Ramsey and Giroud,” I reply. “You?”

“You need to ask?” The other boy laughs, pointing to his shirt, which has the phrase ‘Aaron Ramsey is god’ emblazoned on it in big, bold letters. “Still reckon we’d have beaten Portugal if he wasn’t suspended.”

“Probably,” I laugh. “I’m Ian, by the way. Ian Freeman.”

“Neil, Neil Wright,” the boy replies. “Heh, think you got the wrong surname!”

“Yeah,” I chuckle. “Do- do you have a table? I kinda don’t know anyone here…”

“Sure,” Neil says, and I try to suppress my grin as I follow him to the table where two other boys are sat. On the way to the table, we pass countless tables populated by teenaged girls, all of whom are spending more time digesting the information on their phones than digesting their food. No doubt my parents would love nothing more than for me to be part of that silent, image-obsessed clique, which makes me all the more desperate to build a genuine friendship with Neil and his friends.

“Oh good,” one of the boys snorts as Neil and I sit down. “Another arsehole fan.” I bite my lip as I try to cover my embarrassment by pulling my cap lower.

“Ignore him Ian, he’s the only arsehole around here,” Neil says, making the other boy snort with laughter. “That’s Lee, the man who’s lived in Cardiff his whole life but supports his ‘hometown’ of Manchester United.”

“Hi,” Lee half-says, half-grunts.

“Hi, I’m- I’m Ian,” I say, trying to make my own voice as masculine and ‘grunting’ as possible.

“I’m Rob, Rob Goddard,” the other guy at the table says with a friendly grin. “And I don’t take a side in the football arguments between these two.”

“Because he’s a wuss,” Neil teases, and I try not to giggle as Rob gives him the finger in return.

“Did- did you three go to school together?” I ask.

“Sadly, yes,” Rob says. “No one from your school coming here?”

“Given that I went to school in London, it’d be kinda, you know, a bit of a journey each day,” I reply, making the other three boys chuckle.

“Someone who actually supports their hometown!” Neil laughs. “How long you lived in London?”

“Eleven years,”, I reply. “I was born in Cardiff but my parents moved to London for- for work. I live with my grandmother now.”

“You kept your accent pretty good,” Lee says, making me smile- if only he knew that my Welsh accent was just as false as the deep pitch I’m speaking with.

“Thanks,” I say.

“What are you studying?” Rob asks. “Neil and I are doing computer programming, Lee’s doing electronics.”

“Graphic design,” I say with a grimace. “’Brainy’ stuff… Not my thing. Don’t get me wrong, I always wanted to be a coder, a nerd, but with my dyslexia-“

“Uhh, he’s found our deep, dark secret,” Lee laughs, making me frown. “’Nerds’?”

“…Sorry,” I say, biting my lip hard to keep myself from blushing at the unintended insult. At my old school, ‘nerds’ who studied computer programming, like my three new friends- or like Ollie, for the matter- were looked down on by the popular kids, and given my need to be seen as one of the popular kids (even though that ‘need’ was entirely down to external pressures), I was forced to look down on them as well. Mum would probably have an aneurysm if she saw me sitting at this table…

“Nah, you’re not wrong to call us nerds,” Rob laughs. “We’ve all been to the Doctor Who Experience at least twice each. Neil and I actually want to be game designers. Don’t suppose we could persuade you to make some graphics for us if we make the game engine?”

“Umm… Might be a bit beyond what I can do right now,” I laugh.

“Meh, there’s no rush,” Rob shrugs. “What you got planned tonight, Ian? The three of us are heading back to my place for a gaming session, you’re welcome to join us if you want.” My eyes go wide at the offer- there’s nothing I’d like more than to spend time getting to know my new friends, but as I open my mouth to respond, my chest is gripped by a moment of panic- I barely know these boys, they barely know me, and most importantly of all, they don’t know the TRUTH about me. If they suddenly found out that underneath my jeans and my t-shirt were a pair of breasts and a vagina… I shudder to think about what might happen. I don’t even need to imagine it, either- my ‘date’ with Ollie this February just gone is all the proof I need that being alone with the boys is NOT an option.

“I, uh, need to get home tonight,” I grimace. “Kinda help out my grandmother throughout the house, she’s old, you see…”

“Ah, that sucks,” Rob sighs. “Maybe another night this week?”

“Umm, sure,” I say as the four of us finish our lunches and head to our classes.

The class itself is straightforward enough, just the tutor introducing himself to the class and showing us the basics of the software we’ll be using. As we’re sat at individual computers for the class, there’s no opportunity to socialise with any of the other students, and even though they’re also mostly male, this suits me just fine.

By the time our tutor dismisses us at the end of the day, I’m so exhausted from nerves that I have to stifle a yawn as I climb back into grandma’s car, but it’s only as we’re driving home that I realise that, for want of putting it a better way, I’ve ‘won’- I started the day with the goal of getting through the whole day without being ‘outed’ as a girl, or having a panic attack at the thought that I might be, and this goal has been accomplished in full. Hell, I may even have made a new group of friends. Whatever worries I had about today… They were all for nothing.

“Stop yawning, it’s still early,” grandma chastises me, and I smile as I stifle another tired, nervous yawn.

“Sorry,” I laugh. “Been a bundle of nerves all day.”

“Well you’re back in one piece, so I assume it all went well?” Grandma asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “Course seems interesting, I was given a copy of the software to play around with at home…”

“…And?” Grandma asks.

“…’And’?” I reply.

“’And’ did you make any new friends?” Grandma asks, and I try not to sigh at her persistence.

“Maybe,” I say. “Got talking to a group of boys at lunch… They actually asked me if I wanted to go and play videogames with them tonight.”

“Well, I hope you said ‘yes’,” grandma says firmly, catching me by surprise.

“Really?” I ask.

“…Why did you say ‘no’?” Grandma asks me.

“I, um, I was nervous,” I mumble. “They- I- I didn’t tell them, about, you know, ‘Kayleigh-Ann’… They just think I’m, um, just another boy.”

“You ARE just another boy,” grandma says, making me smile.

“Yeah, but they’ll inevitably find out,” I sigh. “And they’ll be, well, angry… And they might to do, well, what Ollie did…”

“That disgusting young man,” grandma spits at the mention of my ‘ex-boyfriend’s name. “Not all men are rapists, Ka- Ian.”

“I know,” I sigh. “But all men COULD be, and that’s the problem. I don’t want to put myself in a position where I’m outnumbered by guys, you know?”

“Are they on your course?” Grandma asks.

“No,” I reply. “Two of them are doing computer programming, the other’s doing electronics.”

“So you must have got to know them at lunch, right?” Grandma asks.

“Well, yeah…” I reply. “One of them’s an Arsenal fan, saw my hat…”

“So you already have things in common with them!” Grandma said. “Next time they ask you to go to their house, you should say yes.”

“But- but what about-“ I plead.

“You can’t go through your whole life without making any friends,” grandma says firmly. “If you’d like, you could always ask them to come to our house so I can check them out for you?”

“Uhh… No, that’ll be fine,” I say, forcing a smile- albeit a nervous one- on my lips as we arrive home.

Any opportunity to relax on the sofa only lasts a few minutes, however, as grandma comes through from the kitchen holding the house phone in one hand and wearing a worried expression on her face.

“Ian…” Grandma says quietly. “There’s- there’s a message on the answerphone for you. It’s from- it’s from your mum.” My chest again grows tight as grandma passes me the phone, and mere seconds after pushing the button to replay the message, I’m almost hyperventilating,

“Hello, Kayleigh-Ann,” mum’s voice says in a stoic, almost angry tone. “I hope you’re enjoying college in Cardiff. Your father and I miss you a lot. Call us back when you get this message.”

“Oh god…” I moan, bile rising in my throat.

“I could call them back if you want,” grandma offers, “but they will want to speak to you at some point.”

“I- I’ll call them back,” I whisper, taking several deep breaths to compose myself before pressing the ‘redial’ button.

“Hello?” Mum’s voice asks, answering the phone after just two rings.

“Hi mum!” I say in the feminine, English voice that sounds utterly WRONG as it leaves my mouth. “I, um, I got your message…”

“Hello Kayleigh-Ann,” mum replies in the same voice as before, a mixture of stoic, angry and disappointed. “How was your first day at college?”

“It was- it was okay,” I reply. “It was mostly just induction, meeting the tutors…”

“What production is the college doing this year?” Mum asks, making me bite my lip- she believes that I’m studying performing arts, and that’s an illusion I can’t afford to break just yet.

“Pride and Prejudice,” I answer, remembering the posters in the hallway outside the college’s performing arts wing- a place where I have no intention of ever setting foot.

“Oh, very good,” mum coos. “Of course, you’ll be one of the Bennett sisters. I can’t wait to see you up on stage, wearing a beautiful dress…”

“Auditions aren’t for several weeks,” I laugh.

“That doesn’t mean it’s too early to rehearse, or to make friends with the director,” mum says. “Though I’m sure there’ll be a college in London that’s doing Pride and Prejudice, there was no need to run away from home to further your acting career…” I bite my lip even harder as mum tries to emotionally blackmail me the same way she’s done during my whole life.

“I’ve, uh, I’ve also got, umm, a part-time job,” I mumble. “I’m umm, doing extra work on… The new series of Doctor Who.”

“…Well it’s a nerd show, but it’s popular enough,” mum says with an audible shrug as I stare into the disapproving eyes of my grandmother. “Should be good first step on the ladder.”

“I, um, think grandma wants to talk to you,” I say, handing the phone to the elderly woman, who takes it into the kitchen, returning fifteen minutes later with her unhappy facial expression still firmly attached to her face.

“There was no need to lie to your mother,” grandma says in a quiet voice.

“I know,” I mumble. “It’s just going to make things worse when I eventually- well, you know…”

“Exactly,” grandma says. “Though if it was the only way to prevent you from making marks on your wrist, then I guess we’ll just have to live with it, won’t we?”

“I’m not THAT stressed,” I say, making grandma smile. “If I was sat here wearing a skirt, though…”

“Well THAT’s something you won’t have to worry about ever again,” grandma says with a confident grin. “And come Thursday, I’m sure we’ll have that in writing!”

“Yeah,” I say with a quiet chuckle. “I, um, I should get on with my homework…”

“Don’t let me stop you,” grandma shrugs. “But while you’re on your computer, make sure you also Facebook those boys you told me about. It is Facebook that you young folks do, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I laugh. “Though the only Facebook profile I have belongs to ‘Kayleigh-Ann’…”

“Then consider that another part of your homework,” grandma says with a grin as she hands me my laptop.

As ordered, I spend the whole evening working on my laptop, setting up my course software on there and creating a new Facebook profile in the name of ‘Ian Freeman’. Unsurprisingly, after joining my college’s Facebook group, I get several friend requests from my tutors and people on my course- and, unsurprisingly, three more from Rob Goddard, Neil Wright and Lee Charlton, all of which I immediately accept.

As I head to bed, I make sure to logout of ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s Facebook profile on my phone, though before I do, I take one last look at the posts from all of the ‘friends’ I left behind in London, and I can’t help but sigh. As much as I hated the life, I did at least have friends who cared for me- especially Abbey-Gayle and her gang, who went out of their way to make me feel better whenever I was down, and that happened a lot. Then again, if I’d simply been born into the gender I desired, I wouldn’t have been down in the first place, which today’s stress levels proved. ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ would’ve been a nervous wreck who spent the evening screaming into her stuffed toys and having thoughts of self-harm. ‘Ian’ is still a nervous wreck, but my limbs are all undamaged, and there isn’t a stuffed toy anywhere to be found in my bedroom. And I’ll make new friends. I may already have made new friends… I just wish I didn’t have to let down my existing friends in the process…

Unlike yesterday, when my alarm wakes me for my second day of college, I’m not anxious, but actually excited, looking forward to getting on with my course, and that enthusiasm is obvious even as I head into the kitchen, where grandma is already preparing breakfast.

“Good morning, college boy!” Grandma teases as I sit down at the breakfast table. “Looking forward to today?”

“More than I was yesterday, heh,” I reply.

“Good,” grandma says. “Did you find your friends on your Facebook last night?”

“I did, yeah,” I reply. “Had a look at their profiles, they’re all cool guys… Kinda nerds, though. Not that that’s a bad thing, of course.”

“I know that, I’m not your mother,” grandma says, making me giggle. “When she was at college it was like she was afraid she’d catch fire if she touched anything that wasn’t related to the latest trend. I’m glad to see you’ve not picked up THAT trait from her, Ian.”

“Thanks,” I laugh, before eating my breakfast and pulling on my clothes, which of course includes my trusty Arsenal FC cap.

With the ‘introduction day’ completed at college, today we get straight down to work, which involves playing around with the software, customising pictures and various images such as company logos. It’s easy enough work, but still takes up all of my attention until our tutor dismisses us for lunch. I smile as I head toward the dining hall, and pause before I enter the vast room, fishing my cap out of my bag and securely clamping it to my head before joining the queue to get my lunch, where I immediately spot a familiar face.

“Hi, Ian!” Rob says as he passes me in the queue with his lunch. “We’re sat over by the fire exit, if you want to sit with us again today?”

“I’d like that,” I say with a grin. “See you in a couple of minutes, okay?”

“Sure,” Rob says, his grin just as wide as mine. I try to hide my grin as I sit down at Rob, Neil and Lee’s table a couple of minutes later with my lunch, though as they’re also clearly pleased to see me as well- but only as another male friend. During my last few months as ‘Kayleigh-Ann’, I became very used to the look of pure lust that so often flashes across the eyes of boys my age. As I look at my three new friends, I still see that look- but only when they look at the girls that pass us by, or sit at other tables. When they look at me, they only see one of the boys… And I need to do my best to make sure that never changes, even if it means I never tell them the ‘truth’. A secret like mine, though, is hard to hide…

“Enjoy your chores then, Ian?” Lee teases, laughing as I flash a very unladylike middle finger at him. “Guess not, then!”

“I’m actually praying for homework so that grandma gives me a break, heh,” I laugh.

“Why did you move from London, anyway?” Lee asks bluntly.

“Uhh… Bit of a falling out with my parents,” I mumble, earning sympathetic smiles from my friends.

“Think that’s all we need to know,” Rob says.

“How was the gaming session last night?” I ask, making the boys all grin.

“Meh, I had fun, can’t speak for the other two though,” Neil says with a smug grin.

“Spot who whooped all our arses last night,” Lee snorts, making me laugh.

“Got a gaming session tonight?” I ask.

“Nah, Tuesday nights we usually go swimming,” Rob says. “Though you’re willing to come along to that, if you’d like?”

“Ehh… Not a good idea,” I grimace. “I- I-“ I stammer, trying to think of a way to finish the sentences that doesn’t involve the words ‘I have breasts’ or ‘I’d need to wear a bikini or a one-piece swimsuit’.

“…You can’t swim?” Lee asks, making me inwardly breathe a sigh of relief as I nod, even though I’m actually a very good swimmer. “Meh, there’s no shame in that. Rob here never learned how to ride a bike!”

“My dad’s been giving me driving lessons even though I’m not seventeen for another four months, I don’t NEED a bike,” Rob retorts as the other boys- myself include- all let out a quiet laugh at his expense.

“Four months?” I ask. “Don’t tell me that you’re a millennial baby too?”

“January 19th,” Rob says. “Think my folks got there just a little too late. What, were you actually born on January 1st 2000?”

“December 30th, 99,” I reply. “Mum was NOT happy about that.”

“Eh, just means that you get to drive two days earlier that you would’ve otherwise,” Neil shrugs. “And get pissed two days earlier when you get to eighteen.”

“I guess,” I shrug, biting my lip at the awkward silence that subsequently occurs.

“Anyway,” Rob says, making a point of breaking the silence. “Eat up, lunch is almost over. Ian, if you don’t want to come swimming with us, we’ll be gaming again tomorrow night, if you’d like.”

“Umm, sure,” I say, remembering grandma’s advice about not throwing away a potential friendship over a potentially trivial fear. “Your place again?”

“Sure,” Rob shrugs. “We’ll see you there.” I smile, though secretly, my insides are once again churning at the prospect of spending time alone with the boys, to the extent that I actually have concentrating during the final lesson of the day, and when I climb into grandma’s car to go home, the elderly woman can instantly sense that something’s wrong.

“How was your day?” Grandma asks, even though she clearly already knows the answer.

“Not bad,” I shrug. “I, um, I spoke to those boys again.”

“Ooh, good,” grandma says with a proud grin. “Then why are you in this car instead of going to one of their houses? I don’t mind you calling, you know, if you want to go to a friend’s house after college, that IS what I got the mobile phone for, and god knows when your mother was your age me driving her home hardly ever happened.”

“They’re, um, they’re going swimming today,” I say, biting my lip as grandma grimaces. “Basically the only thing I just can’t do- at least not as ‘Ian’, anyway.”

“That’s true,” grandma concedes. “Ian, you- you aren’t just making excuses, are you?”

“No, honestly, I’m not,” I plead. “…Though I am kinda nervous… I agreed to go to their house tomorrow, but- but they don’t know- they don’t, well, ‘know’ yet.”

“Everything I’ve read about living a transgendered life says it’s better to be open with friends sooner, rather than later,” grandma says. “So obviously you should tell them… But I appreciate that it won’t be easy. I’ll tell you what- you invite your friends around to my house tomorrow, that way you’ll be on ‘home turf’ when you tell them.”

“Well- okay, I guess,” I grimace. “They’re kind of expecting a gaming night, though…”

“I am not buying you a PlayStation!” Grandma snorts as I bite my lip and blush. “Maybe for Christmas and/or birthday. You’ll just have to find something else to entertain you and your friends tomorrow. You haven’t got your money’s worth out of that Netflix thing you asked me to pay for, for starters!”

“…Okay,” I mumble as we make our way back to our home where, just like yesterday, I crash heavily onto the sofa. However, just like yesterday, my chance to relax is thwarted within mere minutes when grandma emerges from the kitchen carrying the house phone in her hand.

“Really?” I moan. “Mum again?”

“No, Ian, not your mother,” grandma says, clearly put out by my tone of voice. “Listen to the message.” I nod, before pressing the button and listening to the message- the very first sentence of which makes me sigh with frustration.

“Hi Kayleigh-Ann!” A very familiar West Indian accent greets me. “It’s Abbey-Gayle here, me and the girls was wondering how you was getting on in Wales, like, ‘cause it’s been AGES since we last seen you, so we’s gonna have a call on Skype tonight, we’ll get a group chat going, just like old days, innit? I’ve sent us all a Facebook message to try to get this sorted but you ain’t not seen it yet so I figured I’d call you at home in case your phone was broken or something. Message me when you get the chance, okay? Talk to yous later, Kayleigh-Ann.”

“Ughhhhh,” I moan as I hand the phone back to grandma.

“They ARE still your friends,” grandma says.

“They’re ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s friends,” I retort. “And even then ‘she’ wasn’t too fond of them.”

“Well it’s up to you whether or not you call them,” grandma shrugs. “But if you keep making excuses, it’ll eventually get back to your mum, you know how much she liked those girls, even if you didn’t.”

“I know,” I moan. “Have to keep up appearances until I come out to the world. And I am NOT ready for that yet, not by a long way.”

“As I said, it’s your choice,” grandma says, handing me my laptop. “’Kayleigh-Ann’s Facebook page is still up, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I reply with a long sigh as I switch on my laptop and log back in to the Facebook profile I’d hoped I’d left behind.

Three hours later, after dinner, I find myself laid on my bed staring at my laptop’s screen with an angry scowl. Fortunately, I’ve been able to persuade the other girls- or rather, just ‘the girls’- that my webcam is broken, so my face is still as make-up free as it has been for the past two weeks, and my body is still clothed in the slouchy jeans and t-shirt I wore to college. Whilst this helps to ease my stress, it doesn’t eliminate it, especially once the four girls start talking.

“Like, OMG!” George squeaks, her voice grating on my nerves just as much as it would if she was here in person. “College this year is SOOOO hard!”

“TELL me about it,” Brooke giggles. “Like, this year’s book is, like, three times as long as last years!”

“I’m SO glad I don’t need to read in my course!” Georgie squeaks. I’m amazed you can read at all, I think to myself self-pityingly. “Right, Kayleigh-Ann?” It’s been so long since I was addressed by my birth name, my ‘dead name’, that for a brief second, I don’t even realise that I’m the one being addressed.

“Hmm?” I reply. “Umm… Yeah, but we have to read our scripts, you know?”

“Oh, tee hee!” Georgie giggles, her ignorance yet again acting as a source of amusement for her, and her alone. “OMG! I’m SUCH a ditz…”

“So, Kayleigh-Ann,” Ella giggles. “Got your claws into any cute Welsh BOYS yet?” Ah, what a surprise that this is the first question you ask me, I think to myself.

“I reckon she’s got one there with her now,” Brooke laughs. “That’s why her webcam’s supposedly ‘broken’!”

“OMG!” Georgie squeals. “What’s his name? What’s his name?”

“There are no boys in my bedroom,” I sigh, before the corners of my mouth turn upwards into a smile as I realise that I’m saying isn’t 100% true. There IS a boy in the room… And his name is Ian David Freeman. And he would give anything to be talking to anyone, ANYONE else right now.

The group chat lasts over two hours, by the end of which my brain is numb from the talk of boys, modelling work, dancing, clothes and make-up and my vocal chords feel like they’ll never be able to speak in a masculine pitch again. As I log out of Skype, I let out a long, frustrated scream, before laying back onto my bedsheets. Instinctively, I reach out with my left arm, looking for my trusty stuffed giraffe, but I’m suddenly reminded that Melman, like the rest of my old life, is back in London, and I let out another frustrated scream.

“Ian!?” Grandma asks as she barges into my room, having clearly heard my frustrated yell. “Ian, are you okay?”

“Yes,” I sigh, coughing to try to rediscover ‘Ian’s voice. “Just frustrated, that’s all… That call was NOT pleasant. Then again, they never were…”

“I bet those boys you sit with at college seem like a good choice of friends now, don’t they?” Grandma asks, making me sigh.

“Yes,” I mumble, smiling as I remember the last two days’ lunch periods with Rob and co. “Grandma… I- I’m not trying to sound ungrateful, but- but why are you-“

“Why am I pushing you so hard on this?” Grandma asks, making me nod. “Because I want you to have FRIENDS, Ian. It’s not right that I’m the only person in Cardiff that you know.”

“I know the people at the shop where I work,” I mumble.

“You do six hours on a Saturday,” grandma retorts. “Hardly enough time to make real friends, not like you can at college.”

“I suppose,” I shrug. “I just- I just can’t get Ollie out of my mind, you know? I thought HE was my friend, but he was- well, you know the whole story there…”

“Ollie only saw you as a girl pretending to be a boy,” grandma says. “The boys from college don’t know Kayleigh-Ann, and they never will. From the way you’ve described them, they do seem like nice young men. And you have to ask yourself this: would you rather take a chance making new friends, or would you rather spend all evening in this room screaming into your pillow?”

“But that ‘chance’ could end up with me being in a much, much worse situation,” I say darkly.

“Well that’s why you should bring them round here first,” grandma says smugly. “I’ll cast an eye over them, and you trust your old grandma’s judgement, don’t you?”

“Well, yes-“ I begin.

“Then that’s settled,” grandma says with a grin. “Ian, I’m not going to put you in a position that makes you uncomfortable, but you NEED to have friends your age.”

“I know,” I sigh.

“You get your rest, you don’t want to be yawning all throughout college tomorrow!” Grandma orders before she leaves me alone with my thoughts.

She’s not wrong- I’d be much happier and much better off with Rob’s gang as my friends than with Abbey-Gayle’s gang, something that tonight’s group conversation proved. And it’s not just because around Abbey-Gayle and her gang, I’m forced to become ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ again- something that makes me physically ill- but it’s because Rob, Neil and Lee are obvious close, genuine friends, unlike Abbey-Gayle and co, who are all very obviously only out for themselves and would stab any of the others in the back given the slightest opportunity.

The group chat is still (almost literally) ringing in my ears when I wake up the following morning, and while I eat breakfast and get dressed ahead of college. Fortunately, this doesn’t stop me from concentrating on my work once I arrive at college, and the more I concentrate, the easier it is to shake Abbey-Gayle and co’s babble from my brain until all that’s left are grandma’s words of wisdom regarding friendship. I have a smile on my face- and, as always, a cap on my head- as I walk into the dining hall and quickly locate Rob, Neil and Lee, all of whom greet me with waves and ‘alright’s as I pass their table en route to the dinner queue.

Once I have my lunch, I return to the boys’ table, not needing to wait for an invitation before sitting down.

“Hi, Ian,” Lee says, obviously not realising how much it means to me to be treated as just another one of the guys.

“Hi guys,” I reply. “Fun swimming last night?”

“Yep,” Neil answers. “Sucks that you couldn’t come. You really never learned how to swim?”

“…Never got around to it,” I shrug. “I’m kinda… Not really built for swimming, heh."

"Eh, everybody can swim if given the right instruction," Neil shrugs. "My sister's actually a swimming instructor, I could introduce you, if you'd like?"

"Umm... Maybe some other time," I say, biting my lip to try to control my sudden anxiety.

"She's also nineteen and single," Lee interjects, laughing as Neil gives him a playful (but still hard-sounding) slap on the back of the head.

"...He's not wrong," Neil sighs. "Not entirely sure you'd be her type, though. No offence, Ian, but- but you are kinda, you know, a bit 'effeminate'- no offence, like."

"Nothing I haven't heard before," I shrug.

"And unless you like listening to girls prattle on for hours about make-up, music and dancing, she's probably not your type, either!" Lee laughs.

"No slap this time as he's 100% right," Neil chuckles. "She spends hours each night drowning in Instagram posts but this bunch of airheads called 'The Angels'."

"Yeah, I know- well, knew- a few girls who were that same way," I laugh.

"Obsessed enough to learn French and apply to be a stewardess with the airline they briefly worked with?" Neil asks. "The ones who were on ITV this Monday just gone?"

"Oh- seriously?" Rob asks. "Did Rhiannon really do that?"

"Even went down to a group interview session in London in July," Neil laughs. "Didn't get through, of course, competition for those roles is too great and her French wasn't good enough, but she's probably going to try again next year."

"Isn't that the airline where all the stewardesses are transsexuals?" Lee asks, making my chest suddenly tighten.

"Not all of them, but most of them, yeah," Neil answers. "Rhiannon's favourite member of the Angels is actually the transsexual one, come to think of it."

"Eh, whatever floats her boat, I guess," Rob says as I clench my fists to try to gain the strength to speak.

"It- it's a bit weird, isn't it?" I ask. "You know... Suddenly changing your gender..."

"I don't think there's anything really 'sudden' about it in most cases," Rob answers, catching me by surprise with how insightful he is. "From what I understand, most of the time it's like the person's been struggling their whole life, depressed, that sort of thing."

"I've even heard a few times about people who have killed themselves when they weren't allowed to change their gender," Neil whispers, leading to an awkward silence that makes me feel guiltier than ever at having raised the topic.

"Anyway," Rob says, breaking the silence. "Games night, Ian, you in?"

"I- I'm in," I say, before remembering grandma's offer from last night. "I, umm, don't know when I'll be able to get away, though, don't know if grandma has any chores... Would you- would you mind coming over to my place, like?"

"Umm, I guess," Rob shrugs. "Will need to pack a few things first, it's tabletop games night, does your grandma have, like, a dining room table we can clear for the night?"

"Umm, would a kitchen table do?" I ask, my heart beating faster at the prospect of actually introducing the guys to my grandmother.

"Should be fine," Rob shrugs. "See you around 6pm?"

"It's a- umm, yeah, sounds great!" I laugh.

The afternoon lessons pass by in what feels like seconds, thanks to my excitement for tonight being almost overwhelming. As I pass the trio on my way to grandma's car, I can't help but compare and contrast the chat I had over lunch with the chat I had with Abbey-Gayle's gang last night. Like Rob, Neil and Lee, they also talked about the flight attendant programme that was on TV on Monday (and that I made a point of NOT watching), but unlike the boys, they gushed over the stewardesses one minute, before bitching about them the next. Talking with the boys felt real, natural- not at all like talking to the girls.

"Hello, Ian," grandma says as I sit down and fasten my seatbelt. "Are you going to a friend's house tonight?"

"Umm, no," I say with a sly smile. "But I might have invited a few of my friends over, at around 6?" Much to my relief, grandma simply grins in response.

"Six it is," grandma says. "I guess I'll make an early tea, then..." I grin as we head home, where, much to my relief, there are no voicemail messages waiting for me. I'm still anxious, of course, but for good reasons this time, and I wolf down my tea and finish off my homework as fast as possible so I can prepare myself for the evening's activities- whatever they may entail. One thing's for certain, though- by the end of the night, whether I like it or not, my friends WILL know the truth about me...

I actually jump when a knock comes from the front door- it's only a few minutes before 6pm, and obviously, I was expecting the knock, but it still comes as a surprise to me and causes me to take several deep breaths to calm myself.

"Go and see who's at the door, Ian," grandma says firmly, and it's all I can do not to feel sick with nerves as I open the door to find Rob, Neil and Lee staring back at me.

"Hi guys," I say, unconsciously scratching my chest where my elastic bandage has been in place for almost ten hours. "Come on in!"

"Cheers," Rob says, entering the house carrying a large metal briefcase.

"Umm... You moving in or something?" I tease, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief as Neil and Lee chuckle at my joke.

"No," Rob says. "I did say tonight was tabletop gaming night... Oh, um, hi Mrs. Freeman, thank you for letting us come over tonight."

"That's quite alright," grandma says with a smile. "And it's Mrs. Jones, actually, Freeman- Freeman was Ian's father's surname, I'm his maternal grandmother."

"Oh, okay, sorry Mrs. Jones," Rob says in a very polite manner. "I'm, um Robert, Robert Goddard, this is Neil Wright, this is Lee Charlton."

"Nice to meet you Robert, Neil, Lee," grandma says with a grin. "The kitchen's all yours for when you want it, I've left drinks in the fridge for when you want them, nothing alcoholic, of course."

"Thanks, Mrs... Jones," Rob says as we head into the kitchen, where I breathe a long sigh of relief.

"Oh, cheer up, your grandma's alright," Lee says as Rob opens up his briefcase. "God knows mine would've forced about a hundred scones down our throats by now."

"Yeah, I guess," I say. "What's in the briefcase?"

"Tonight's entertainment," Rob says with a grin as he places several small, carefully painted spaceships onto the table. "You've watched Star Wars, I take it?"

"Umm... Only the most recent one," I reply with a grimace.

"That's okay," Rob shrugs. "These are from the most recent one. Have you ever played anything like Warhammer before?"

"Doubt my parents would've approved," I sigh.

"Meh, okay," Rob shrugs. "Well this is fairly simple to learn. Tell you what, what we'll do it play in teams, me and you vs Neil and Lee, and I'll teach you how to play the game, okay?"

"Sure, sounds great!" I grin as the other three guys begin laying out various dice and game pieces on the kitchen table.

A couple of hours later, after having 'blown up' our spaceships over and over again, Rob packs away his game whilst I have difficulty removing the grin from my place. I don't know if it's because I find the game entertaining- which it is, despite its complexity- or whether it's because I know that if mum saw me playing anything so unapologetically geeky, she'd have an aneurysm and a heart attack at the same time.

"We usually play games like this every Wednesday," Neil explains. "Normally Rob's brother acts as the fourth man."

"Ahh..." I grimace. "Sorry if I kinda, umm, kinda kicked him out."

"Oh trust me, don't be sorry," Rob laughs. "You've only played this once and you're already, like, a hundred times better than he is!"

"...I got the X-wing blown up twice," I say, making the other guys chuckle.

"Yeah, but you didn't fly it into an asteroid," Rob says, making me laugh. "Yep, that did actually happen once."

"So if you want to apologise for giving us actual competition, go ahead," Lee says, making me snort derisively.

"Or not," I retort. "Guys... I really, really had fun tonight."

"Glad to hear it!" Rob laughs. "We have a regular board game tomorrow night, at my house if you want to come along."

"I'd love t-" I begin, before remembering that tomorrow, I have a much more important appointment. "...Ah. Kinda got an appointment- a, um, a doctor's appointment tomorrow evening."

"Not dying, are you?" Lee asks.

"No," I retort, before letting out a long sigh. "Guys... There's something- something you need to know about me."

"Umm... Okay," Neil says with obvious and understandable caution.

"The thing is, I..." I say as I edge closer to the door, ready to escape in case things get very bad very quickly. "I, umm... I'm transsexual."

"Umm... Right?" Rob replies. "So, what... You wish you were a girl?"

"No, I mean I AM a girl," I say, frowning at the confusion in my new friends' faces.

"Isn't- isn't that what I just said?" Rob asks. "Sorry if I'm sounding insensitive, it's not something I'm really familiar with."

"No, no- ugh," I spit. "I mean, I WAS a girl. But I want to be a boy."

"Oh," Lee says, suddenly realising. "So you were a born a girl, but you're now a boy, so you're, like, a girl-to-boy transsexual?"

"Yes," I say, taking several deep breaths and trying not to hyperventilate.

"Right, well, umm, okay then," Rob says with a light laugh. "I don't- I don't really see how this changes anything, umm, do you want us to treat you differently or-"

"No, no I really don't," I say, my breathing returning to normal as I calm down. "All my life I just wanted to be one of the guys."

"Works for us," Rob shrugs. "Right, guys?"

"Sure," Lee says.

"Yep," Neil says with a nod. "So, like, are you taking hormones or something?"

"Not yet," I whisper. "That's what tomorrow's doctor's meeting is for. Well... Hopefully, anyway."

"Huh, okay, well, let us know how it goes, okay?" Rob asks as he hauls his briefcase to the front door.

"Sure thing," I say with a grin, waving off my new friends as they get into Neil's father's car. "Bye..."

"Now they ARE nice boys," grandma says. "I doubt you'll have any problem if you tell them about you know what."

"I- I did tell them," I whisper. "And they were all cool with it. Really cool with it."

"Well then," grandma says with a smug grin. "Looks like you've got yourself a group of genuine friends, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, yeah it does," I say, still unable to comprehend just how well the guys took the news.

When I wake up the following morning, I feel stronger and more confident than ever. All my fears, my anxieties were groundless, and I can put them behind me, where they belong. My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann, and I am NOT a girl, and I now have three friends to whom my name has NEVER been Kayleigh-Ann, and I have NEVER been a girl.

My confidence manifests itself as a wide grin as I walk into the lunch hall- not wearing my cap today for the first time since I started college- grab my lunch and sit down with my three new friends, all of whom have supportive smiles on their faces.

"Alright mate?" Rob asks as I tuck into my chicken burger.

"Alright," I reply.

"Mate," Lee sighs. "I'm gonna tell you now, what you said last night- we talked a LOT about it once we got home."

"...Okay," I reply. "Hope you were only saying good things?"

"Oh, definitely," Rob says. "You say you're a boy now, regardless of what you were in the past, and that's good enough for us."

"Thanks," I say with a smile.

"Umm, though..." Lee mumbles. "We, umm... Would you mind- would you mind if we, you know, asked, umm-"

"Shoot," I shrug.

"Umm, when- when did you-" Lee asks.

"About three years ago," I say. "I'd always known SOMETHING was wrong. I always got depressed a lot... I was only able to nail down what it was around three years ago."

"So- so did you like, crossdress in men's clothing?" Neil asks.

"Guess you could say that," I shrug. "Used to have a friend in London who helped with that... Turned out he only did that as he wanted me as his girlfriend."

"Oh, what a wanker!" Lee snorts, making me laugh.

"What was- umm, what used to be your name?" Rob asks. "Don't tell us if you don't want to, like."

"...It was Kayleigh-Ann," I sigh. "Kayleigh-Ann Walker. I picked 'Ian' as it sounds like the last two syllables of my old name."

"And obviously you didn't want to be called 'Ian Walker' like the old Tottenham player," Neil says. "So, is- is 'Freeman', you know, a pun? Like, 'free man'?"

"Got it in one," I say. "Seemed the most appropriate name. Well, that or 'Newman'. I preferred 'Freeman', so Freeman it is."

"And I suppose the most important question of all," Rob says, before letting out a long sigh. "God... No, this one's too personal."

"No, it's okay," I say softly. "I know guys aren't supposed to open up to each other, but ask if you want. Though if it- if it's about sex-"

"Oh, HELL no," Rob laughs.

"Though we'd be lying if we said we DIDN'T talk about it last night," Neil mumbles. "I did say yesterday that you kinda looked effeminate... Kinda obvious now that you think about it, heh."

"What's your question?" I ask, trying to steer the topic of conversation away from the S-word.

"Is- is this-" Rob stammers, before letting out a long sigh. "I'm only asking this as it was probably the thing we wondered most last night."

"...It IS about sex, isn't it?" I whisper.

"Not at all," Lee replies. "Not if it's what I think he's going to ask."

"Is being transgendered..." Rob mumbles. "...The reason you're living away from your parents?"

"...Yes," I sigh. "They don't know about it, not yet. Mum always got it into her head I'd be a famous dancer or actress. Dad's the most useless parent in the history of ever, and my paternal grandmother... Ugh. Imagine the only person in the world who thinks that Donald Trump is too liberal, and you'll get her."

"Ugh," Rob spits. "My grandma's kinda the same, she was very pro-Brexit, reckoned that if we left the EU every immigrant would just up and leave the UK. Boy, was SHE surprised."

"Why do old people get more fascist as they get older?" Lee muses.

"Well... Not ALL old people," I say.

"Ah, of course," Rob laughs. "Your 'cool grandma'."

"And she IS cool," Neil laughs. "And, I guess, so are you, Ian."

"Thanks," I reply with a grin. "So are you guys."

"Cheers," Rob says as we finish our lunches and head to our next class. "Good luck at the doctor's tonight."

"Cheers," I say, heading away from the three guys and feeling stronger than ever.

Four hours later, I find myself sat alongside grandma in front of Doctor Harris, and despite my new-found confidence, I'm still nervous, nervous about what my counsellor might say and what she might recommend. Like Doctor Williamson in London, she wanted to make sure that my stress was because of my gender identity issues and not just because of the stress of parental pressure, or exams, or performing on stage- all of which I have, of course, left behind, just like I left behind the identity of 'Kayleigh-Ann Walker'.

"I read the stress journal you emailed me last night," Doctor Harris says in her refined Cardiff accent. "I was very interested in what you wrote about the discussion you had with your girl friends back in London, and how you compared it to the discussion you had with your new friends here in Cardiff. I was also very intrigued to read about your coming out to them- obviously, it's a stressful thing to come out to anyone, but I'm glad to see that it went well."

"Yeah," I mutter.

"It's obvious from what you've written and the way you've written it, that you very much consider yourself to be male," the middle-aged woman continues. "The way you describe your stress at having to keep up the facade of being female, both around your parents and around your friends in London, when combined with our discussions over the last few weeks and your discussions with Doctor Williamson, is enough for me to give a diagnosis of gender identity disorder." My jaw drops as I hear the words I've been longing to hear for so long.

"R-really?" I ask. "So- so I am- I am a boy?"

"Medically speaking," Dr Harris says, "you can be classified as a boy trapped in the body of a female, yes."

"And can I begin treatment?" I ask. "Hormones, surgeries..."

"One step at a time, Ian!" Grandma says, making me bite my lip as my enthusiasm is curtailed.

"Your grandmother's right," Dr Harris says. "We do need to take this one step at a time, but the first step IS hormone replacement therapy. As you're sixteen, we can prescribe a full course of hormones, but what I'd like to do first is start you on a three-month course of testosterone, just a mild dose to see how your body reacts to this. Of course, for this, I will need the permission of your legal guardian."

"Do you feel this will help Ian?" Grandma asks before I have the chance to speak.

"In the long run, absolutely," Dr Harris says. "As per the diagnosis, I believe that Ian is a man trapped in the body of a woman. Hormone therapy is the first step in all transgender treatments as it helps patients to feel like the gender they wish to become, to start feeling comfortable in their own bodies."

"What are the effects?" Grandma asks.

"In the long term," Dr Harris says, "psychologically Ian should start to feel more settled as his body more closely matches his gender identity. Physically, his body will see many changes. He'll begin to grow facial hair and greater amounts of body hair. His body fat will start to redistribute, from his hips and his backside toward his waist. Over time, his skin will become less smooth and his upper body strength will increase. He will also stop menstruating."

"I honestly, truly want all of those things," I say. "In my body, I- I feel weak, like I'm 'incomplete', like I'm only half the person I want to be."

"The one concern I do have," Dr Harris says, "is that you still haven't told your parents. However, I obviously don't need their permission to begin the treatment, I only need your grandmother's."

"And I am prepared to give that permission," grandma says, making me take several nervous, excited breaths.

"The hormones will be administered by weekly injections," Dr Harris says. "I can have the first one ready for you after college tomorrow, if you'd like?"

"Yes! Yes, I definitely would!" I say, making my grandmother and my counsellor giggle.

"Tomorrow it is then," Dr Harris says, and my heart is fluttering with excitement as I leave the doctor's office.

I barely get any sleep before my alarm clock wakes me for the final school day of the week, I'm that excited, and not just because I will begin my physical transformation, but because everything I've thought over the past few years, everything I've believed has been validated, has been proven to be true. I have a piece of paper in my possession that states that I AM a man trapped in the body of a woman. It is the opinion of a medical professional that my name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann, and I am NOT a girl, and there isn't anything anyone can say that will change that.

After a fairly relaxing day at college, completing tasks for my tutor and chatting with my three new friends, I head back home to get changed ahead of my first appointment, but as I head downstairs, the sight of my grandmother holding the house's landline and wearing a frown on her face causes me to stop.

"It- it's your mother, Ia-Kayleigh-Ann," grandma whispers. "She wants to talk to you." I nod, before taking the phone from grandma and desperately trying to remember to speak in my 'old voice'.

"He-hello?" I whisper.

"Hello Kayleigh-Ann," mum says, making me shiver as she uses my dead name. "How was your first week at college?"

"It- it was okay," I mumble.

"...You're rehearsing for Pride and Prejudice, I'd hope it'd be better than just 'okay'," mum sneers. "You ARE working hard, I take it?"

"Of course," I say. Just not in the way you think, I think to myself.

"And have you made new friends?" Mum asks.

"Umm, yeah, a few," I say.

"Well your friends in London still miss you," mum replies. "Especially Abbey-Gayle and Ella. Ella is now signed to the same agency as Abbey-Gayle, so you should try to become closer to her. I always did say that girl was a positive influence." No, I think to myself, you always said that she was a BAD influence. Funny how that changes now she's supposedly in a position to help my 'career'...

"Yeah," I say half-heartedly.

"And your father and I miss you too," mum says. "That's why we're coming up to see you tomorrow." My eyes go wide at the news and I momentarily freeze through fear.

"Umm, no, you- you can't!" I blurt.

"...And why not, Kayleigh-Ann?" Mum asks, clearly angry at my tone of voice.

"I, um, I'm working tomorrow," I say.

"Oh," mum says. "Doing your extra work for that Doctor Who thing?" No, I think to myself, I'm working in a videogame store. But as far as you're concerned...

"...Yeah," I say. "Gonna be busy all day... And all day Sunday, too."

"Oh, okay," mum says. "Well, as long as you're impressing the producers and the directors and making connections in the industry, that's what matters, I suppose. We'll have to come up the weekend after."

"Umm, I guess," I say, my heart beating faster and faster at the prospect of the confrontation with my parents- a confrontation I'm simply not strong enough for, not yet, anyway. "Can- um, I think, um, grandma wants to have a word..." My grandmother looks at me with a stern stare as I hand the phone back to her, though realisation dawns on her as mum begins talking.

"Oh," grandma says. "Oh, I see, yes, she is a busy young lady, isn't she? Well, we'll have to work that out nearer to the time. I'll talk to you soon, Angela." I grimace and bite my lip as grandma ends the phone call and fixes me with a very stern stare.

"I can't keep bailing you out like this, young l- young man," grandma says.

"It won't be forever," I plead. "Just until I feel- just until I'm ready to tell them."

"Ian," grandma sighs sadly. "You know that no matter what happens, I'll always support you, right? Even if your parents reject you, you'll always have a home here."

"I know," I sniffle as I wipe a tear from my eye. "But I- I just want them to love me for who I am. Is that so wrong?"

"No, no of course not," grandma whispers as she gives me a tight, comforting hug. "Do you still want to go and get your injection?"

"More than ever," I reply.

Half an hour later, I wince with pain as a needle is jabbed into my upper arm and a hot liquid flows through it into my veins, quickly diluting into my bloodstream. Even though I know it won't make any physical difference for a long while, inside, I feel different. I now have testosterone flowing through my veins, and that will only become more and more true with every injection.

By the end of the three month course of treatment, I'll hopefully have tougher, coarser skin, a wider waist and narrower hips, a deeper voice and maybe, if I'm really lucky, facial hair. I've taken the first step toward being the boy I always wanted to be, and I'm lucky that my grandmother has taken it with me, and I have genuine, loving friends who'll support me every step of the way- friends who bombard me with questions about the injection the second I arrive at Rob's house for games night.

I just wish, I truly wish that my parents would be willing to take some of these steps with me...

“…Well, I guess that’s that, then,” Rob sighs. “You all know what this means.”

“We tried so hard to avoid it,” I mumble. “But in the end, I guess we’re just going to have to face up to it.”

“Yep,” Neil says. “I think in the end, we all knew this was going to happen sooner or later.”

“Yeah,” Rob sighs, leading to an awkward pause. “Next game… We open up box 8.”

“Ehh, you never know,” Lee shrugs as we help Rob pack away the board game. “It could be a positive thing, like, we’ve lost 4 games in a row, maybe it’ll take pity on us and give us a leg up or something.”

“Seriously?” Rob asks. “Pandemic actually HELPING? Nah, it’ll be more like ‘pick three cities at random: these cities have now been nuked.”

“There’s only one way we’ll find out,” I shrug. “You never know how it’ll go until you, like, open the box and find out. And either way, it won’t be the end of the world, right?”

“We’re playing a game that literally deals with the end of the world,” Lee retorts. “…Though I guess you’re right, Ian. Next Thursday, we’ll still play this game.”

“And we’ll still probably lose,” Neil laughs. “God, don’t know why I’m so nervous…”

“It’ll be fine,” Lee says. “No need to be nervous.”

“Yeah,” I say as I head out to Rob’s father’s car for my lift home. There’s no need to be nervous about the board game…

…Not when I have so many other reasons to be nervous. Today is Thursday, the 22nd of December. For the past four months, I have lived my life as a teenaged boy named Ian. For the past three months, I have received regular injections of testosterone, designed to masculinise my body and help me feel more comfortable in myself. And for the most part, they’ve worked. All my life I’ve been plagued by depression, by the feeling that my body is inherently WRONG, like who I was wasn’t who I was supposed to be. Ever since the testosterone treatments began, though, those feelings have shrunk further and further. The more time I spend as ‘Ian’, the more time I spend with my friends at college, or hanging out at their homes, or at work, the more comfortable I feel, the more I feel like this truly is who I’m supposed to be.

However, not everyone agrees with that sentiment. At college, everyone knows about my ‘secret’ and seems to be okay with it, but on the rare occasions I’ve used the boys’ toilets, I’ve felt the eyes of every other boy in there staring at my body, no doubt wondering what’s underneath the baggy jeans and the sweatshirt. Even worse, none of the girls in the college will have ANYTHING to do with me, sneering at me every time I go near any of them. Though this may be because I’m part of a group of boys who are committed geeks and nerds, I don’t know. It’s a good job I don’t care about popular- ‘transsexual nerd’ ticks just about every box for scorn from the popular kids at college.

And sadly, it’ll also tick every box for scorn from the two most important people who don’t yet know about ‘Ian’- my parents. Ever since I ran away from London in August, I’ve had to keep up the pretense that I am still ‘Kayleigh-Ann’, that I’m studying at Drama College and working part-time as an actress. Every time they call- which is several times a week- I have to use my feminine voice, which is becoming more and more unnatural with every passing day, and at least twice a week I log into Facebook as ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ and chat with my old ‘friends’ from London- Abbey-Gayle, Ella etc- which is even more mind-numbing than when those conversations were face-to-face, now that I’ve had a taste of the life I so desperately want to live.

It’s heartwarming in a way that my parents still care this much- I guess that boy or girl, I AM still their only child- but it’s still a source of stress, especially as they end every conversation we have with an offer to visit me in Cardiff, or a request (which sometimes borders on demand) for me to return to London to see them. Most of the time I’m able to fend them off by saying that I’m busy with college (which I am, most of the time) or ‘work’… But that couldn’t last forever, at in October, during half-term, mum announced that she was coming to visit, and much to my horror, grandma agreed before I had the chance to protest.

“She’s still my daughter,” grandma said firmly. “I haven’t seen her in months, and I want to catch up. And you know that this will have to happen sooner or later, Ian.”

“I know,” I said, trying not to sigh or sulk. “It’s just- I don’t know if I’m ready yet.”

“You can’t hide who you are forever,” grandma insisted. “Especially not from them. They’re coming down in two days, whether you’re ready or not.”

“…And if I’m not ready?” I whispered.

“Ian, I know this isn’t easy for you,” grandma said in a firm but sympathetic voice. “Your counsellor says this is the biggest step you’ll take, but it is a step you need to take, and the sooner you do it, the sooner you can move on. And you know I’ll always support you no matter what your mother and father say.”

“I know,” I mumbled.

“So you can either stand up tall and proud, and introduce them as your son,” grandma said, “or you can pull on those old shorts that Kayleigh-Ann used to wear and keep up the lie when they come to visit. The choice is yours.”

Naturally, being the coward that I am, I chose the latter, and immediately regretted it- not just because it delayed the inevitable yet further, but because in the two months since I’d last pulled on any item of feminine clothing, I’d forgotten just how much I truly hated it. I tried to tell myself ‘it’s just clothes, it doesn’t mean anything’, but the second I stepped into a pair of tights, I shuddered and almost felt sick to my stomach.

The second my parents left, I headed back to my room and scrubbed away every last trace of ‘Kayleigh-Ann’, throwing away all ‘her’ underwear and make-up and putting all of ‘her’ clothes into a charity collection so that I never again give into the temptation to ‘wimp out’. As I saw the last traces of my old life disappear, I felt more and more confident that I was making the right decision, especially as all throughout their visit, my parents spent virtually none of the time asking how I am, and virtually all of the time filling me in on the antics of Abbey-Gayle and her gang. Considering that I’d spent several evenings beforehand listening to Abbey-Gayle’s gang prattle on about their lives and so-called modelling careers, it just gave me one more reason to try to postpone the next encounter with my parents for as long as possible- but with Christmas just a few days away, and my birthday just five days after that, it’s something I just can’t put off anymore.

“Hello, Ian!” Grandma says with a warm grin as I step through the front door. “Did you have fun at your friend’s?”

“I did, yeah,” I say. “Just played a few games…”

“Good, good,” grandma replies. “Your dinner will be ready in about half an hour. …Your mother called while you were out.”

“Okay,” I whisper.

“I explained to her that you’d be out all day,” grandma says. “So you won’t need to call her back. Not when you’ll be seeing her in two days anyway, her and your father.”

“I guess,” I laugh.

“Do you know yet what you’ll say to them?” Grandma asks. “Obviously I’ll explain to them before you, well, ‘introduce yourself’, but what you say will be important as well.”

“I- I dunno,” I sigh. “I’ve thought about it a lot, but every time I- there’s nothing, nothing I can think of that won’t get me shouted at or shipped off to a nunnery or something. I can just hear it now: ‘you’ve wasted all your father’s time and money’, ‘all the time we wasted raising you’…”

“Exactly,” grandma says with a smug smile. “Those arguments are only about how your parents will feel about themselves.”

“…I’m sorry, I don’t follow…” I mumble.

“You think your parents will be focussed on material things like money,” grandma says. “REAL parents should focus on what’s best for YOU, regardless of the cost.”

“GOOD parents would,” I say with a dark voice that makes grandma frown.

“Well, that’s an argument we don’t need to repeat,” grandma says quietly, before letting me head up to my room to get changed.

After pulling off my coat, my baseball cap and my trainers, I pause as I catch a glimpse of my body in my wardrobe’s small mirror. I’ve only been taking testosterone for three months, but even that small amount of hormones has started to make a difference to my body.

In the past, I’d clamp my trusty Arsenal cap to my head, kneel down in front of my full-length mirror and repeat the phrase ‘my name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann, I am NOT a girl’ in the futile hope that it would somehow make it comes true. Now, though, if I put my hat on and repeat the phrase ‘my name IS Ian, I Am a boy’… I can actually believe it.

Obviously, there are some changes no amount of testosterone will ever be able to overcome. My skeleton will always be female- my shoulders will always be narrow and my hips wide. My curves, on the other hand, have started to ‘straighten’ a lot. My waist has widened by a couple of inches, which will no doubt cause mum to have an aneurysm when she finds out. This change, however, is less down to my hormones and more due to the fact that grandma is feeding me with REAL food as opposed to the vegan crap on my ‘food plan’. The mere smell of the spaghetti and meatballs that grandma is cooking is making my mouth water.

Even though my waist has widened and my weight has noticeably increased, I’m not fat- far from it, in fact- I’m just not supermodel slim anymore. It turns out that Neil’s father works at the local leisure centre where the guys go every week to swim, and as that’s obviously not an option for me (not yet, anyway), Neil arranged for his father to give me an hour of boxing coaching whilst they swim. As such, I get a good workout every week, and I’ve noticed muscles starting to grow on my arms and my legs. Slightly more excitingly, hair has also started to grow on my limbs!

Funny story- when I first went to train with Neil’s dad, he casually mentioned how he’d never trained anyone ‘like me’ before and was looking forward to the challenge. My entire body went tense, getting ready for yet another barrage of transphobia (as Mr. Wright obviously knows about my ‘status’), or comments on how I was the first transgendered person he’d coached, or worse yet, the first girl… Then he told me I was the first southpaw- the first left-hander- he’d coached.

‘Kayleigh-Ann’ often got called ‘fit’ by virtually every boy who plucked up the courage to speak to ‘her’, and I never understood why- yes, I was athletic, anyone who did all the extra0curricular activities I did would be, but I was almost a stick figure… I feel a lot more ‘fit’ now than I ever did pre-testosterone. The girls who occasionally drop into the videogame store where I work certainly agree, too- I’ve been ‘checked out’ by them on more than one occasion. How odd that when a man ogles a girl in that manner, they’re objectifying them, but when a girl ogles a guy, it’s a compliment…

The most exciting physical change to my body, however, are definitely the three thin, wispy hairs growing out of my chin. They only appeared a few days ago, but the first time I touched them it felt like I was touching a live electrical wire. All my other physical changes- my waistline, my muscles- could be put down to other factors, such as my diet or my exercise regime. The hair were the first undeniable proof that I was being chemically changed from female to male… And they’re also proof that I won’t be able to hide from my parents on Christmas Eve, even if I wanted to.

The same night I discovered my ‘beard’, I had a dream of me and my father standing in front of our bathroom mirror back at our home in London, where he taught me to shave, like father taught him and his grandfather taught his father… And for a moment when I woke up, I honestly believed that that dream would come true. Then, that night, I received my near-daily phone call from my mother, and I remembered that my father only barely qualifies as a ‘man’ himself.

“You took your time,” grandma complains as I sit down and tuck into my dinner.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “Still feeling nervous about Saturday…”

“Well there’s no need to be,” grandma insists. “Whatever happens on Saturday, I promise you that on Sunday, you’ll wake up in your bed and you’ll still be a boy, and you’ll come downstairs and open a big pile of boys’ presents.” Tell that to Laura White, I think to myself as I remember the transgendered girl who was abducted by her father two years ago.

“Mum and dad won’t be happy about me not wanting all the girls’ presents they bought me,” I say.

“Probably not,” grandma concedes. “But you told me they keep the receipts for everything they buy, they can always get their money back.”

“I guess,” I mumble. “They’ll be doubly angry as they’ve probably already bought my birthday presents too, heh. Though I guess if it’s driving lessons, I can use those just as well as a boy as I could as a girl.”

“That’s the spirit!” Grandma says with a grin. “You need to remember, Ian, that your parents DO love you. They only have your best interests in mind.”

“We’ll see,” I say in a dark voice as I finish my delicious, meat-filled meal.

After doing the washing-up for grandma, I spend the rest of the evening watching TV with her and trying vainly to distract myself from my upcoming confrontation with my parents. Grandma says they only have my best interests in mind… But I know better. Ever since I was born I was little more than an accessory to my mother, something she could show off to her shallow friends, her ‘designer millennium baby’. I was little more than a list of achievements she could boast about- and the less I achieved, the less she cared about me. As I grew up it felt almost like I was transforming from her accessory into an investment- or worse yet, her retirement fund, someone who could keep her in the life of luxury she’d become accustomed to with all the money I’d earn from my glittering career in showbusiness.

And never, at any point, was I asked what I wanted myself. My best interests in mind? Yeah, right.

“Ian!” Grandma yells from downstairs, waking me from my dreamless slumber. “Wake up, your breakfast’s ready!”

“Coming,” I reply, sighing as I pull on my dressing gown to shelter me from the cold (though my additional muscle mass does a good job of this too).

“Good morning, sleepyhead!” Grandma teases as I sit down at the kitchen table and she shoves a plate of toast under my nose. “Got anything planned today?”

“Not really,” I mumble. “Might call up the guys, see if they’re free. Just want to do anything to take my mind off of tomorrow…”

“Well if all you’re doing is worrying about tomorrow, then that’s sensible,” grandma says. “I do wish that you’d had a brother or a sister, someone who you could confide in, someone you could talk to when you couldn’t talk to your parents. I used to talk to my big sisters a lot when I was your age. Of course, we didn’t have Facebook or mobile phones back then, so I really didn’t have anyone else to talk to!”

“Heh,” I reply as grandma’s words resonate with me. Never mind a brother or sister, I’ve never even really had a best friend I could confide in. I can’t talk deeply with the guys from college- after all, they- sorry, WE- are guys. The closest thing I had to a best friend- Ollie- only saw me as a potential shag, his sister has all the emotional depth of a cushion and her friends (my old ‘friends’) are all vacuous, airheaded models... Well, maybe not ALL of them are vacuous and airheaded…

“I’ll, um, I’ll probably go on Facebook to see if any of them are available,” I say quietly as I finish my breakfast and formulate a plan that will hopefully help to ease my stress ahead of tomorrow.

After getting dressed, I do indeed log into Facebook on my phone- but it’s ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s profile in log into, rather than ‘Ian’s. Unsurprisingly, with it being two days before Christmas, all my friends- well, ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s friends- are showing as available, but there’s only one friend I’m interested in talking to today- the only friend in that old ‘gang’ that I was ever interested in talking to.

‘Hi Ella!’ I type, smiling as the tall Australian girl almost immediately starts typing a reply.

‘Hi Kayleigh-Ann!’ Ella types, and I try not to bristle at the use of my deadname. Obviously, Ella doesn’t know about ‘Ian’, she simply thinks instead that I’m still a girl and living away from London for college and work… And it’s time to end that delusion.

Coming out to Ella won’t be anywhere near as stressful as coming out to my parents, of course, but she still clearly thinks of me as a friend, and I never really disliked Ella the way I did the other girls… When it comes down to it, I guess I still think of her as a friend as well. A friend who probably wouldn’t share any of ‘Ian’s hobbies or interests, but a friend nonetheless. But how the hell do I tell her that the girl she’s been chatting with ceased to exist three months ago?

‘How’s everyone in London?’ I ask.

‘Everyone’s frozen solid!’ Ella replies. ‘Don’t think I’ll ever get used to it being so cold at Christmas lol!’ Despite myself, I find myself giggling girlishly at Ella’s enthusiasm. ‘Want me to get the other girls into the convo?’

‘No,’ I hastily type. ‘I only want to talk to you.’

‘I’m flattered,’ Ella types with a winking smiley. ‘If only you were a cute boy, lol!’ I try to keep my nerves from fraying as Ella follows up her message with a winking emoji, followed by a ‘kissing’ emoji. Any other sixteen year old boy would give their right arm to receive messages like those from a tall, beautiful girl like Ella... And even my heart flutters a little upon receipt of the emoji.

‘Yeah,’ I type.

‘Speaking of,’ Ella types before I have the chance to think of what to type next, ‘have you bagged yourself a cute Welsh boy yet? Or do none of them meet the impossibly high standards of Miss Walker?’

‘Look who’s talking!’ I retort without thinking, earning a ‘stuck out tongue’ smiley from the Australian girl.

‘I’m an official Heavenly Talent model, I can afford to be picky,’ Ella types with another ‘sticking out tongue’ smiley. ‘I might not be an Angel, but give me enough time and if Abbey-Gayle suffers from a nasty accident…’

‘Lol,’ I type, frowning as Ella remains oddly silent for the next couple of seconds.

‘Seriously?’ Ella types. ‘Didn’t you read what I just typed?’

‘Umm, you want to be Angel?’ I type.

‘Yes…’ Ella replies. ‘And the other bit?’

‘Umm, you want Abbey-Gayle to suffer a nasty accident?’ I type. ‘Think we’ve all been there…’

‘God, Kayleigh-Ann!’ Ella types, the frustration clear in her words. ‘You sure you’ve not been hanging around with boys as you’ve got so dense all of a sudden. ABBEY-GAYLE IS AN ANGEL.’

‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ I reply with a sticking-out tongue smiley.

‘Lol,’ Ella types. ‘Seriously, though, I’d expect you to be burning with jealousy! God knows I was…’

‘Meh, live and let live,’ I reply.

‘But didn’t you always want to be a supermodel?’ Ella asks. ‘You were always boasting- well, when you said anything, anyway- about your acting, all the lessons and opportunities your parents kept getting for you…’

‘That’s the point,’ I type, taking a deep breath. Ella’s given me the perfect opportunity to segue into what I REALLY want to say… Might as well take it. ‘I wasn’t boasting, I was complaining.’

‘Complaining!?!?’ Ella types. ‘What do you have to complain about? You’re a cheerleader, a ballerina, an actress, and I’m sure you’d have been a model before too long, maybe even signed to HT as well.’

‘But I never wanted any of that,’ I type. ‘I never even wanted to be a girl.’ I gasp after I send the message as it’s only then that I realise that I’ve finally said what I’ve wanted to say for so long- and now that I’ve said it, I can’t ‘unsay’ it. The cat is very much out of the bag now…

‘Kayleigh-Ann, what are you saying?’ Ella types, and my fingers start trembling so much I struggle to type my reply.

‘I always wished I was a boy,’ I type. ‘Since I moved to Cardiff I started living as a boy full-time and I’m taking hormones to change my body as well.’

‘OMG,’ Ella types. ‘Kayleigh-Ann… Are you serious?’

‘Totally,’ I type, before taking a photo of my hairy chin to send to Ella. ‘And from now on, you can all me Ian. Ian Freeman.’

‘O. M. G.’ Ella types, followed by a string of ‘shocked’ emojis. ‘ZOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!’

‘I plan on going all the way,’ I type. ‘Testosterone, surgeries… The lot. All I want is to be a normal boy.’

‘OMG!’ Ella types yet again, making me roll my eyes.

‘Do you only have three keys on your keyboard?’ I type with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji.

‘Jesus Christ, Kayleigh-Ann!’ Ella types. ‘Or Jesus Christ, Ian! How long have you felt like this? How many other people know? Is this why you left London?’ I roll my eyes yet again as Ella’s questions come through so fast that I don’t have the chance to type a response to any of them before the next one comes through.

‘Since puberty at the earliest, the only other person in London who knows is Georgie’s brother, and yes, in that order,’ I reply. ‘I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone I haven’t even told my parents yet, they’re REALLY strict, that’s why I moved away.’

‘OMG of course, my lips are sealed!’ Ella types, making me smile- airheaded model or not, Ella has shown that she can be real friend. A real friend to ‘Kayleigh-Ann’, that is, the jury’s still out on whether or not she’d be a good friend for ‘Ian’…

‘Thanks,’ I type. ‘My parents are coming down tomorrow, I’m telling them then… I’m really, really nervous. Or even terrified. Telling you was kinda a ‘test run’. No offence.’

‘None taken,’ Ella replies.

‘Why do I get the feeling you deleted the letters ‘OMG’ from that message before sending it?’ I type with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji that earns a whole string of the same emoji in response from the Australian girl.

‘Shut up, you typical BOY!’ Ella replies with a winking emoji that makes me laugh out loud. ‘Seriously though, you told me before you told your parents?’

‘I wanted to see how you’d react,’ I reply. ‘Again, no offence, but we are friends, right?’

‘Of course,’ Ella types. ‘And you didn’t want to tell any of the other girls?’

‘Georgie has a mouth wider than the Bristol Channel,’ I type. ‘Brooke and Abbey-Gayle would just think ‘how can I twist this to benefit me’. You’re the only one of the girls I trust. Lol, you’re the only one I even like!’

‘Aww,’ Ella types. ‘Tbh you’re the one I liked the most too, I’ve really missed you since you moved to Wales.’

‘I missed you more than any of the other girls put together,’ I reply. ‘But whenever we chat, it’s all Angels this and boys that… Made my brain hurt.’

‘Kinda did me too,’ Ella types. ‘I know I’m eighteen now and I SHOULD be out partying every night, but sometimes I just want to snuggle up on the sofa with my boyfriend, you know?’

‘Yeah,’ I type, trying to shake off the odd tremble in my stomach brought on by Ella’s mention of a boyfriend.

‘Or I guess for you, it’d be ‘girlfriend’, right?’ Ella types.

‘Lol I dunno,’ I type. ‘Don’t want to think about it really, none of the girls at college really like me though that’s because I’m kinda a nerd now, spend my night playing videogames and board games.’

‘Meh, I guess you’re not eighteen yet so you kinda can’t go out partying,’ Ella types. ‘OMG you’re seventeen next week though aren’t you?’

‘A week today,’ I type with a smiling emoji. ‘That’s something I’m dreading, reckon my parents will have got me all girly presents for Christmas and birthday and my grandma- not the one I live with, my other grandma- still thinks I’m six.’

‘Ugh, hate that,’ Ella types. ‘My grandma still treats me like I’m a child, actually threatened to ground me the other week. Like, I’m eighteen! I’m an adult, I have a job and earn my own money!’

‘Lol, we’re just two blondes living with our grandmothers away from everything we ever knew,’ I type, earning a smiling emoji from Ella.

‘With one big difference between us, BOY!’ Ella types, earning a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji from me.

‘You’re really okay with this?’ I type. ‘I know Aussies are supposed to be live and let live, but I know it’ll mess up the whole Angel thing we were trying to do.’

‘Oh sure, stereotype me, MISTER sheep and male voice choirs!’ Ella types. ‘Our whole ‘Angel thing’ really collapsed since Abbey-Gayle got promoted earlier this month anyway. That’s why the Skypes haven’t been as often.’

‘Tbh I hadn’t noticed,’ I type.

‘Think Abbey-Gayle got everything she wanted from us and has moved on,’ Ella types with an ‘angry’ emoji. ‘Ironic- she always wished we could have a transgendered member of the group to make us more Angel-like. Who knew, right?’

‘Maybe not what she had in mind,’ I reply with a sticking-out tongue emoji. ‘And it’s not like you can’t be a super sexy supermodel too, you ARE six feet tall and gorgeous.’

‘Aww, thanks!’ Ella types with a ‘wide grin’ emoji. ‘And coming from a boy, too!’

‘Lol,’ I type with a grinning emoji of my own.

‘So I guess we won’t be seeing you back anytime soon?’ Ella types with a ‘sad’ emoji. ‘Or Kayleigh-Ann ever again?’

‘Depends on how it goes with my parents,’ I type. ‘I’ve been happier the last three months than I’ve ever been. I’ve got friends and a life in Cardiff. But mum will yell at me and try to emotional blackmail me into going back home, I know it.’ My ‘crying’ emoji is replied to with a ‘hugging’ emoji from Ella.

‘They can’t legally make you do anything you don’t want to, right?’ Ella asks.

‘Who says anything about being legal?’ I type. ‘You know what happened to Laura from our ballet class. This time next week I’ll be celebrating my birthday in a nunnery.’

‘Or your parents, especially your dad, will love the idea of having a son,’ Ella types.

‘Dad loves what my mum and his mum tell him to love,’ I type with an ‘angry’ emoji.’ I’ve only been on hormones three months and already I’ve got more balls than him.’

‘LMAO!’ Ella replies. ‘He does seem a bit henpecked from when I met him.’

‘He’s useless,’ I type. ‘And mum’s a psycho. Tomorrow will NOT go well.’

‘Well anytime you need to chat, IAN, you just ask,’ Ella types with a ‘smiling’ emoji. ‘Boy or girl, nerdy or trendy, we’re still friends. I always wanted a little brother.’

‘I am NOT being your little brother,’ I type with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji.

‘I’m taller than you and older than you, you don’t have any choice,’ Ella types with a stuck-out tongue of her own. ‘Does IAN have his own fb profile?’

‘Yeah, I’ll send you a request,’ I type with a smiling emoji. ‘Thanks for understanding, Ella.’

‘That’s what big sisters are for,’ Ella types, earning an ‘eye roll’ emoji from me in response. ‘G2G, going shopping with grandma. Goodbye forever, Kayleigh-Ann, and talk to you soon, Ian!’

‘Yeah, I should get ready for work too. Talk soon!’ I type with a smiling emoji as Ella logs out of Facebook and I crash onto my bed, letting out a long sigh of relief.

Ella’s positive reaction to ‘Ian’ has given me a boost of optimism, but coming out to an open-minded eighteen year old who’s only known me a few months is a very different prospect from coming out to the people who raised me. Or at the very least, tried to raise me. ‘Coach me’ might be a more appropriate way of wording it… But the truth is, they did devote seventeen years of their life to bringing me up, feeding me, clothing me, putting a roof over my head… I owe them a lot, but I can’t let them dictate how I should live my life. But do I have the strength to say ‘no’ to them?

Fortunately, I’m reminded as I pull on my work polo shirt that I have a life in Cardiff that I can’t simply be uprooted from no matter what anyone- however important- says. I have my studies, I have a job (albeit a part time one), I have friends, and most importantly of all, I have my grandma, whose supportive smile seems to calm my nerves as I grab my coat and head toward the nearest bus stop.

“Morning, Ian,” Dean (my work supervisor) says as I walk into the small, but packed shop. “Get your coat off and hop on the tills, we are packed as hell today!”

“Looks that way,” I laugh as I drop my coat off before standing behind my usual till, where I spend the whole day checking out customer buying last-minute presents for their loved ones, while desperately trying not to think about my own ‘loved ones’.

I leave the shop just after 5:15pm feeling exhausted from the day’s work and increasingly nervous about tomorrow’s confrontation, which is getting closer and closer with every passing second. Fortunately, it’s the middle of winter so my shivering can be passed off as just feeling cold, rather than the real reason.

“Thanks for letting me have tomorrow off,” I say to Dean as he locks the shop’s shutters.

“No worries, mate,” Dean replies. “Would’ve preferred to have you there tomorrow, but some things are more important. Are- are you feeling okay? About tomorrow, I mean.”

“Not really,” I sigh. “I’ve just got every worst case scenario spinning around my head, mum screaming her face off at me, threatening to sue me, threatening to lock me in an attic for the rest of my life…”

“Yeah… This is reality, mate, and they’ll have to accept that,” Dean says. “You’ve got a certificate from your doctor that says in big bold letters ‘boy trapped in girl’s body’ and ‘must take testosterone’. And didn’t you tell me before that your mum’s caught you self-harming before? She’s got to be sympathetic, surely?”

“You’ve never met my mum,” I say darkly. “She’ll take this personally, have one of her so-called ‘depression attacks’, anything she can think of to try to emotionally blackmail me to get her way, same as she always has.”

“But- but they’re your PARENTS,” Dean argues. “Surely they should only be thinking about what’s best for you?”

“’Should’, yeah,” I snort.

“Well, you never know,” Dean says. “This IS the time of year for miracles, after all. Your parents might surprise you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I snort as I head to the bus stop.

“Well either way,” Dean says, “I’ll see you on Boxing Day, okay?”

“Yep,” I say with a tired, nervous laugh. Never imagined I’d be looking forward to working on Boxing Day more than spending Christmas Eve at home, I think to myself.

The journey home is as quick as usual, despite the roads being busier for the festive season, but it feels like hours instead of minutes, I’m so nervous about tomorrow. Everyone I speak to- Ella, Dean, even grandma- are telling me to be optimistic, but they haven’t spent the last seventeen years being yelled at for not trying hard enough at ballet, or not making enough of an effort to make friends with the popular kids, or wearing the correct, 'fashionable' clothes. It’s hard to be optimistic when you’ve never had anything to be optimistic about. The only good thing that has ever happened to me- becoming Ian- happened solely because I took myself away from my parents’ toxic influence. There’s no way I can go back to London with them, no way at all.

“Good day at work?” Grandma asks as I take off my coat and my shoes.

“Busy,” I reply.

“Good,” grandma says. “Hopefully took your mind off of tomorrow a bit, then?”

“Just a bit,” I sigh. “I don’t suppose you’ve had a call from them, asking if they can come another day?”

“No, thankfully,” grandma says, shooting me a stern glare. “Ian, you know this is going to have to happen, and it’s going to happen tomorrow whether you’re ready or not, so I suggest you get ready for it! I’ll be there to support you, as I have been every day for the past four months. I’ll make sure that when they leave, they’ll leave accepting and loving their new son.”

“As long as they don’t leave WITH their new son, or worse yet, their old daughter…” I mumble.

“You’ve got a life here in Cardiff,” grandma says. “From what she’s told me, your mum has accepted that and is happy for you. I refuse to believe that she’s as bad a parent as you’re making her out to be, Ian.” If only I had a parent who refused to see my flaws, I self-pityingly think to myself.

“We’ll see tomorrow,” I whisper, before spending the rest of the evening watching television on the sofa.

Naturally, I barely sleep during the night, I’m so worked up about the confrontation with my parents. On the rare occasions when I do sleep, all I can see in my dreams are the angry faces of my mum and my dad staring down at me, or shouting incoherently at me, or forcing me back into the girls’ clothes I was so desperate to escape…

“Ian!” Grandma yells, waking me from my fitful sleep. “Time to get up, your parents will be here in just over an hour!” I shiver in fear as I throw back my covers, before heading to the shower to wash my body and my short blond hair.

As the hot water cascades over my tense, tired body, I play with the wispy hairs growing out of my chin to try to calm myself about today. I will confess that there’s a part of me that’s desperate to just hide who and what I am yet again, to pull on the shorts and tights that were a part of my life for so many years… But there’s a much larger part of me that’s glad that’s not an option. Regardless of how it goes today, mum and dad won’t be able to ignore what’s staring them in the face. They’ll leave here today as the parents of a son. Whether they’ll be the proud parents of a son, however…

After pulling on my usual underwear, wrapping my elasticated bandage extra-tight to ensure that my chest is as flat as possible (while still remaining comfortable, of course), I pull on my smartest pair of black designer jeans, followed by a smart designer sweatshirt. When I say ‘designer’, I actually mean ‘not bought from Primark or a supermarket’ so they’re not as expensive as ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s clothes were, but they’re hopefully smart enough to show to my parents that whilst I may be a boy now, it doesn’t mean I’m a total slob. Some smart clothes would actually make a good Christmas present…

“Very smart!” Grandma beams with pride as I sit down at the kitchen table and pick at my toast (unsurprisingly, I don’t have much of an appetite). “Any parents would be proud to have you as their son.”

“Even parents who’ve only had a daughter for the last seventeen years?” I ask.

“ANY parents,” grandma says firmly. “Have you decided yet what you’re going to say?”

“I’ve known what I was going to say for years,” I say with a nervous smile. “I’m just going to tell them that my name is not Kayleigh-Ann, and I am not a girl. Anything else they want to know, they just have to ask.”

“And if they’re any good as parents, that will be enough for them,” grandma says in a soothing voice.

However, grandma’s voice isn’t nearly soothing enough, as with every passing minute, I get more and more anxious, to the point that when a knock comes from the front door, I’m practically hyperventilating. This is it, I think to myself. I’m about to become an orphan… Or a nun… Or worst of all, I’m going to become Kayleigh-Ann again…

“Calm down!” Grandma urges. “There’s nothing they can do or say to harm you. I won’t let them. You’re going to go out there and present them with their son. Alright?”

“Al-alright,” I say, taking several deep breaths to compose myself as a second, more impatient knock comes from the front door. I remain in the kitchen for the next three minutes, trying to strain my ears to hear what my parents are saying to grandma, but their voices are so soft and low- which is particularly rare for my mother- that I struggle to follow the conversation… Right up until grandma reveals the ‘secret’.

“SHE’S WHAT!?!?” Mum screeches in a voice almost loud enough for the whole city to hear. That’s my cue, I think to myself as I take a deep breath and step out to face my parents, dad looking at me with his usual blank stare while mum’s face moves through disbelief, to anger, before finally settling on shock.

“Craig, Angela,” grandma says stoically. “Meet your son, Ian.”

“Umm, hi,” I say, trying my hardest to keep my voice masculine as I nervously wave. What feels like an eternity passes as my parents simply stare at me, before mum closes her eyes and holds her hand to her forehead, making it plainly obvious what’s coming next.

“Ohhh…” Mum weakly moans as she leans back in her chair.

“Angela, don’t you dare!” Grandma barks in a voice so fearsome that it immediately snaps mum out of her ‘depression’. “Say hello to your son! Both of you!”

“He-hello, Ian,” dad meekly mumbles.

“No,” mum says firmly, her facial expression changing to one of pure fury. “I refuse to accept this!”

“Mum,” I whisper. “I- I NEED this. Being a girl, it-“

“It is what you were born to be!” Mum snaps. “But you were always too selfish to care about your responsibilities, weren’t you?”

“M-Mum-“ I stammer.

“All those years of ballet lessons, of acting classes,” mum spits. “All that money, all those years of love, wasted!”

“Did you ever even ask me if I wanted any of those things?” I protest, but my question only makes mum angrier.

“I shouldn’t need to ask, you should have been grateful for all the opportunities we gave you!” Mum yells. “I had NOTHING growing up! No dance lessons, no acting lessons and certainly no celebrity friends! I suppose you’re throwing that career away, too?”

“ANGELA!” Grandma snaps, having clearly had enough of mum’s rant. “You did not have ‘nothing’ growing up! We weren’t rich but I tried to give you everything you wanted, everything you asked for!”

“We were poor!” Mum yells.

“But we were happy!” Grandma retorts. “And Ian wasn’t happy living with you! If I’d forced you to play football, or go on fishing trips with your father, you’d have whined for weeks and had one of your ‘depression’ episodes. Frankly, it’s a miracle Ian hasn’t ended up in the funny farm… Or worse.” I stare at mum as her face falls- clearly she remembers the moment a few months ago when she walked on me attempting to break my own foot.

“How long have you been having these feelings?” Mum asks in a much calmer voice than the one she’s been using up to this point.

“Years,” I whisper. “Sometimes- sometimes I have, umm, hurt myself…” I glance up at grandma as I try to blink tears out of my eyes. Boys don’t cry, after all…

“This has all been confirmed by a doctor,” grandma says. “Medically speaking, Ian IS a boy trapped in a girl’s body, and we WILL respect HIM as such.”

“But- but all the money we wasted,” mum pleads. “We’ve got a boot full of presents, dresses, make-up…”

“You always keep the receipts,” I shrug, though this only serves to darken mum’s mood.

“You don’t care about us at all, do you?” Mum sneers. “About what this will do you and to your father, having to go back to London and explain to everyone that we have a transgendered child…”

“Mum, for the last three years you’ve encouraged me to idolise The Angels,” I retort. “You never had a problem with one of them being transgendered.”

“Your other grandmother will disown you, and probably us as well,” mum argues.

“Angela,” grandma says firmly. “You need to accept that from now on, your daughter is your son.”

“We wasted seventeen years,” Mum whines.

“But you have so many more to look forward to,” grandma retorts. “There are more important things than money, Angela. I like to think I raised you to realise this. Ian-”

“HER name is Kayleigh-Ann!” Mum protests.

“IAN,” grandma repeats in a forceful voice that even makes me wince. “Ian has spent the last few days terrified of this meeting right here, right now. No child should ever be terrified of meeting their parents.”

“But it’s okay for a parent to shame their children, is it?” Mum retorts, bringing an even angrier look to grandma’s face. “I refuse to accept that I’ve wasted the last seventeen years bringing up a girl only to have her suddenly turn round and say ‘oh, I’d rather be a boy if that’s okay’!”

“You heard what he said!” Grandma retorts. “He’s felt this way for years! There was nothing ‘sudden’ about it!”

“We have Christmas and birthday presents in the boot for Kayleigh-Ann including a new dress,” mum says firmly. “The only way SHE comes back to London is if SHE is wearing it!”

“…Then I guess I’m staying in Cardiff,” I say in a quiet, emotionless voice.

“I guess you are,” mum says in a cold voice. “Come along, Craig, we’re leaving.” I bite my lip as I watch mum and dad silently stand up and leave, but once they’ve slammed the front door and driven away, I break down in a very unmanly flood of tears.

“Oh, Ian,” grandma sighs, clearly shedding tears of her own. “Let it out, let it out…” I don’t need to be told twice- I spend the next fifteen minutes bawling my eyes out and trying to resist the urge to slash open every single artery in my body.

Once I’ve calmed down, grandma lets me lay out on the sofa (something she almost never allows) before heading upstairs, returning a short while later with a blanket (that I eagerly wrap around myself) and a plastic bag full of Christmas presents.

“I- I thought mum said that she was taking her presents back?” I ask as grandma sits down in her armchair.

“And she did,” grandma says stoically. “These are my presents from your mother and father. But on top of them- on top of them was something I think was meant for you.” I shed yet more tears as grandma pulls a familiar, well-worn stuffed cartoon giraffe out of the bag and hands it to me.

Naturally, once grandma leaves the room, the giraffe’s leg ends up between my teeth as I spend the rest of the afternoon laid on the sofa, trying to cry and scream away my frustrations at effectively becoming an orphan…

Eventually, by the time evening rolls around, I’ve calmed down enough to sit up on the sofa and toss my giraffe to one side, but I still can’t shake the feeling of utter misery and dread from my guts. The confrontation with my parents is in the past, it’s been and gone, and I’m still in Cardiff, and most importantly, I’m still a boy. It could have been so, so much worse… But I’m still miserable. The last time I was this miserable, I was wearing a bra around my chest instead of an elasticated bandage and tights instead of socks… And I’d hoped I’d left it behind just like I have those feminine undergarments.

“I’ve tried calling them again,” grandma says as she comes through from the kitchen. “Still no answer.”

“Thanks,” I mumble. “I- I’m sorry about this…”

“No, don’t you dare apologise!” Grandma says, sitting next to me and giving me a gentle (but very welcome) hug. "I'm the one who should be sorry, I've spent the last few months defending your parents, saying they're not as bad as you think... Obviously, I was wrong. Obviously I raised a daughter who's more interested in things than in her own flesh and blood."

"You don't need to apologise," I whisper. "If it wasn't for you I wouldn't be Ian. I owe you everything."

"You being happy and healthy is all the thanks I need," grandma says. "I think you could probably use an early night."

"Yeah, probably," I sigh.

"Though I will say this," grandma says. "Your mother really didn't seem to be all that upset about the whole 'transgendered' thing. It's almost as if she was using it as an excuse for what she was really upset about- you not doing exactly what she says you should do. She's always been a control freak."

"That's hardly news to me," I say.

"You get an early night," grandma advises me. "You're still the boy you want to be. You've still got a roof over your head, family who love you, good friends, education and a job. And we can and WILL work on your parents. I promise you."

"Thanks," I whisper.

Naturally, I take grandma's advice, heading to bed later in the evening after getting sick of all the Christmas TV grandma insists on watching, particularly the traditional chaos that goes on in the soap operas over Christmas. Reality is enough of a soap opera as it is...

Literally as I'm climbing into bed, though, my phone bleeps, attracting my attention, and when I stare at the screen, my jaw drops at what's displayed on it.

'Ella Henry has sent you a friend request.'

Obviously, as 'Kayleigh-Ann' I'm already friends with Ella, but I'm currently logged into Facebook on my phone as 'Ian'... Meaning that it's 'Ian' who Ella wants to be friends with. Immediately as I accept the friend request, a message comes through from the tall girl.

'Hey,' Ella types. 'Really hope I've got the right Ian, I spent ages looking for Ian Walker in Cardiff before remembering you said you'd changed your surname too.'

'Hey, yep, correct Ian!' I reply, earning a grinning emoji from Ella.

'Awesome!' Ella types. 'How'd it go with your folks today?' I sigh as my moment of happiness from receiving Ella's friend request is replaced by the misery from earlier today, and the only response I send to Ella's question is a crying emoji.

'Oh god, Ian,' Ella types, followed by a 'hugging' emoji. 'So sorry for you. Want me to leave you alone?'

'Actually this chat is the only thing all day that's made me smile,' I reply, earning another grinning emoji in response.

'Aww,' Ella types. 'If you want to talk, I'm happy to listen.'

'My mum's a selfish bitch and my dad's more useless than a chocolate teapot,' I type. 'He didn't say one fucking word whilst he was here, mum and grandma did all the arguing. Mum says I've 'wasted her love'. What the fuck does that even mean?'

'How can you waste love?' Ella replies. 'Surely loving someone is its own reward?'

'You are going to make an AWESOME parent one day,' I reply, which Ella replies to with a 'giggling' emoji.

'Give me a chance, I'm only 18!' Ella types. 'Ugh, grandma's calling me, got to talk to my parents, they'll have just got up and it'll be Christmas Day where they are now.'

'Still miss Australia?' I ask.

'Yeah, think I always will,' Ella types with a 'sad' emoji. 'But every day I'm in London, it feels a little more like home. And now I have at least one true friend in this time zone!' The only reply I have is a smiling emoji to match the actual expression on my face, before Ella logs out of Facebook and I'm left staring into the darkness of my room.

If only I had a friend like Ella I could talk to face to face whenever I wanted, a 'BFF'... Even though it's only girls who are supposed to have those. And a hundred Ellas wouldn't make up for what my parents did and said to me.

Despite my confrontation being behind me, rather than in front of me, I still struggle to sleep, and I'm awake when grandma enters my bedroom with a wide grin on her face.

"Merry Christmas, Ian!" Grandma beams, but despite her encouragement, I'm struggling to crack a smile.

"Merry Christmas," I weakly reply. "Sorry if I'm not feeling very 'merry' today..."

"Don't you worry about anything," grandma says. "You just try to relax and forget about everything today. Well, after helping me prepare Christmas dinner, of course. And after we've been to church. And after you've opened your presents. So get up, get showered and get downstairs, I've already made a start on your breakfast!"

"Yes, grandma," I half-sigh as I throw back my covers and head into the shower as ordered.

When I get downstairs, my jaw drops in shock as I see the large pile of presents on the sofa. In the past, grandma's only ever got me a couple of trinkets and the occasional gift card- none of which was stuff I wanted, of course. Today, however, she's got me a huge pile of carefully-wrapped presents, virtually all of which will be clothes... And knowing grandma, there's a very good chance I'll get an equally big pile for my birthday on Friday.

"Oh my god," I gasp. "There- there's too much here-"

"Nonsense," grandma says. "I've got a new grandson, and I intend to spoil him! I need to make up for the last sixteen Christmases, after all."

"You honestly don't," I whisper. "I- I-"

"All you need to say is 'thank you'," grandma says.

"Thank you," I say, blinking back tears before giving my grandmother a long hug. "Thank you so much!"

"How can you be thanking me now?" Grandma asks. "You haven't seen what I've got you yet!" I giggle as grandma thrusts a present into my hand, which I dutifully unwrap to reveal a brand-new button up shirt with a plain navy blue tie.

The rest of my presents are all unmistakably masculine. Shirts, sweaters, jeans and smart trousers; Lynx deodorant sets; a new pair of smart black shoes and even my very own shaving kit.

"I would've hoped you'd have been able to use that on those whiskers of yours before church," grandma says as I unpackage the shaving kit and begin fiddling with it. "But it'll have to wait for now. Get dressed in your smart new clothes, Ian, we're leaving in fifteen minutes!"

With a genuine grin on my face for the first time in a long while, I take my presents upstairs where I pull on a new pair of jockey shorts, followed by a smart pair of black trousers, a button-up long-sleeved shirt and my new tie. After pulling on a thick pair of socks and my new black lace-up shoes, I stare at my new outfit in my mirror. It doesn't look all that different from my school uniform- with the obvious difference of a pair of trousers and a pair of socks instead of a skirt and a pair of tights- but it feels so, so much different.

There's no frivolousness in my outfit. No need to put on a show, to enhance my look to meet some ridiculous social norm. There's no need to 'compete' with other girls, and certainly no need to compete with any of the boys. I will be indistinguishable from any of the other boys who will be at the church today... And I couldn't be happier.

Sure enough, when I arrive at the church with grandma, I see several other young men there with their families, all of whom are dressed smartly and none of whom care in the slightest about me or about how I look- or especially whether or not I look attractive to them. The teenaged girls who are there, on the other hand, seem to be paying me a lot of attention...

"I know you're not looking for a girlfriend," grandma admonishes me as she catches me staring at some of the girls heading into the church. "But just remember that this isn't the time or the place to start!"

"I know," I mumble as one of the girls smiles at me, causing an odd feeling in my stomach- the same odd feeling I got when Ella told me that she had a boyfriend...

The church service itself passes by without incident. The priest- a younger guy than I was expecting, looking like he's barely thirty years old- spends a lot of the time talking about Jesus's birth and about the 'message' he brought to the world, and the congregation spends a lot of time singing Christmas hymns, before we're finally allowed to leave at just after 11am. As we're leaving, though, grandma takes me to one side to ensure that we're the last to leave, and can therefore spend more time talking to the priest, much to my chagrin.

"Reverend Stubbs, this is my grandson Ian," grandma says as the young man gives me a firm handshake that I try to reciprocate.

"Very nice to meet you, Ian," the priest says with a smile. "Your grandmother has told me a lot about you." Given that you're a god-botherer, hopefully she hasn't told you THE thing about me, I think to myself.

"Nice to meet you," I mumble.

"I'll give you two a moment to talk," grandma says, making me grimace. "Ian, I'll be waiting in the car."

"Thank you as always for coming, Mrs. Jones," Reverend Stubbs says as grandma leaves. "Please take a seat anywhere, Ian."

"Umm, thanks," I say as I sit on one of the hard wooden pews. "I'm, um, I'm not very religious..."

"People find their way to God on their own terms," Reverend Stubbs shrugs. "He's got no problem waiting for you. And he knows how much you've had to wait to be the person you always wanted to be."

"I- I'm sorry?" I ask.

"Your- your transsexualism?" Reverend Stubbs asks. "I'm sorry, if this is a sensitive point then tell me-"

"No, no, it's okay..." I mumble. "So- so you know?"

"Your grandmother is very proud of you," the vicar says. "Of the way you've settled in in a new city when you're only starting to learn to live life as a male."

"I- I'm sorry," I mumble. "I was half expecting a 'fire and brimstone' kind of reaction..."

"And it's sad that in some churches, you'd get that," Reverend Stubbs sighs. "Sure, in the bible it does say 'men should not wear the cloak of a woman, or women should not wear the garment of a man'. But it also says 'judge not, lest you be judged yourself'."

"But- but do you think that God- that he, umm," I stammer.

"I don't believe that God would put someone on this planet only for them to suffer their entire lives," Reverend Stubbs says. "Everyone is entitled to love and acceptance, especially those who are going through a hardship. And depression brought on by gender identity issues is as much a hardship as anything else you'd care to name."

"There are people who wouldn't be as open-minded as you," I mumble.

"Let any one who is without sin be the first to throw a stone," Reverend Stubbs says with a smile. "The words of the lord himself."

"I'm pretty sure the Bible also says 'honour thy mother and father'," I retort.

"Indeed it does," Reverend Stubbs says. "And your grandmother's talked about the demands your mother's put on you as well."

"She actually demanded that I go back with her to London," I say. "Demanded that I become 'Kayleigh-Ann' again."

"It's for the best that you didn't," Reverend Stubbs says candidly.

"But- but isn't that one of the Ten Commandments?" I ask.

"It is," the vicar says. "But it says 'honour' your parents. Not 'blindly obey' them. If blind obedience to them causes you physical or emotional distress, then you shouldn't do it, simple as that. God doesn't want you to suffer, Ian. He doesn't want any of his children to suffer."

"Even those 'children' who start out a daughter but become a son?" I ask.

"ANY of his children," Reverend Stubbs stresses.

"...The Bible really is open to interpretation, isn't it?" I ask, making the older man roar with laughter.

"It certainly has been in the past," the vicar chuckles. "I choose to interpret it as a love story. The unconditional love God has for all of his children. Because none of us are perfect. None of us can cast that first stone, not even me. And as for honouring your parents... My parents wanted me to get a safe job in the banking sector, settle down with a wife and start a family."

"Obviously, that didn't happen?" I ask.

"Especially not as my husband and I are celebrating our two year wedding anniversary in February," Reverend Stubbs says with a wide grin that makes my jaw drop. "God loves ALL his children, Ian, and he has a special place in his heart for you even if- no, especially if the hearts of those who should love you most are closed. Never forget that."

"Thanks," I whisper. "And, um, Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas, Ian!" Reverend Stubbs laughs, giving me a friendly pat on the back as he leads me to grandma's car.

"Thank you for talking to my grandson, Reverend Stubbs," grandma says as I get in the car and fasten my seatbelt.

"You're very welcome, Mrs. Jones," the vicar replies. "Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas!" Grandma and I both reply as we drive away.

"So," grandma asks. "Are you feeling any better after that talk?"

"I am, actually," I say with a smile. "Did you know he's married to another man?"

"He showed us his wedding photos in church once," grandma says with a grin of her own. "I reasoned that if God can accept his being gay, then so can I. And yes, the same applies to you, Ian. The difference being that while I like Reverend Stubbs, I don't love him. But I do love you."

"Thanks," I whisper, blinking back yet more tears. "Are- can you, umm, call mum and-"

"I tried calling them this morning, before you got up," grandma says in a quiet, angry voice. "There was no answer. I'll try them again this evening, after dinner. But you shouldn't get your hopes up, Ian."

"Trust me, I'm not," I sigh. "But I figure that if God can unconditionally love everyone in the world, I can try to forgive my parents... Question is, can they forgive me?"

"Especially as you've not done anything that needs forgiving," grandma says in a voice that almost sounds like a growl. "They know where we are when they want to apologise. Let's try to enjoy the rest of our Christmas, okay?"

"Okay," I say with a smile as we arrive back home.

As grandma insisted, I spend the rest of the day trying to be happy as I help her prepare (and, of course, eat) Christmas dinner, before relaxing in front of the television for the entire evening. As grandma promised, she did try calling mum and dad, but as before, they didn't answer the phone, leaving me with mixed emotions as I head to bed. On the one hand, I'm still miserable about my relationship with my parents, but on the other hand, I still have grandma, my friends- including Ella- and a possible new confidante in Reverend Stubbs (not to mention God himself). It's like the whole world is trying to get behind me, all apart from the people who really matter... And that's what hurts the most.

I wake up on Boxing Day morning with a smile on my face, knowing that with several days of work ahead, I'll have the chance to put the past few days entirely behind me and make a fresh start with my life. I can afford to wait to repair my relationship with my parents... But when I open the front door to head to work, I realise that they may not be willing to wait as long.

There, in their car in the street in front of me, are my mum and dad... And in the passenger seat of the car is my paternal grandmother, who also happens to be the single least tolerant person I have ever known. And look she is shooting me is one of pure, unadulterated hatred.

"Grandma!" I yell in a state of near-panic as I rush back into the house. "Mum and dad are here!"

"What!?" Grandma yells, rising from her chair to stand by me just as my parents and my other grandmother barge into the house. "Craig, Angela? Why are you here?"

"We are here to take our DAUGHTER back to London, where SHE belongs!" Mum spits as I close my eyes and try to will myself into waking up- but much to my dismay, this is no nightmare, this is very much reality.

"I've told you already," grandma says. "You have a SON, and HE is staying in Cardiff with people who actually love HIM for who HE is!"

"SHE has responsibilities in London!" Mum screeches. "SHE has an acting career to go back to! A celebrity group that's going to make her famous!"

"I never wanted any of that!" I yell. "I never wanted to be a dancer, or an actress! YOU wanted that for me! You never asked me what I want!"

"And what DO you want, Kayleigh-Ann?" Mum sneers.

"...I just want to be an ordinary boy," I say in a meek, soft voice.

"Don't be stupid, you pathetic little girl!" Grandma Walker spits in a voice full of bile. "You know full well that trannies deserve to have people lock them up and throw away the key!"

"But why?" I plead.

"Because it's not right, that's why!" Grandma Walker yells.

"Who are you to say what's right and what's wrong?" Grandma Jones yells at the older woman, bringing a look of pure shock to the other elderly woman's face.

"How dare you speak to me like that!" Grandma Walker spits. "Craig, are you going to let her speak to me like that?"

"My mother is the most moral person in the world," dad says in a voice much meeker than my own was a few seconds ago. "If she says something isn't right, then it's not right." The smug look on Grandma Walker's face makes my blood start to boil, and a quick glance at Grandma Jones shows that I'm not the only one who feels that way- but much to my surprise, mum's shooting an angry look at the smug old woman as well...

"Ian tried to take his own life," Grandma Jones says, making me almost throw up with stress. "When he came to see me late last year, I noticed that he has a mark on his wrist. A mark that could only have been made by a sharp object."

"Wh-what?" Mum asks, her jaw dropping.

"Are you seriously telling me that you'd rather have a dead grandchild than a transgendered grandchild?" Grandma Jones asks, showing some smugness of her own at playing her 'trump card'.

"Yes," Grandma Walker says firmly. "If she's going to disgrace her family like that, then she deserves to die."

"Then you don't deserve to be a grandmother, you poisonous old toad!" Grandma Jones growls, making Grandma Walker's face once again contort in a look of pure shock.

"Craig!" Grandma Walker yells at dad, who opens his mouth to respond, but is silenced when my mother begins speaking.

"Did you just seriously say that you wished my child was dead?" Mum yells, stunning both myself and Grandma Jones.

"Yes I did," Grandma Walker sneers. "And you're not fit to call yourself a mother! A REAL mother wouldn't have taken no for an answer and would've put that GIRL back in dresses by force if necessary!"

"Oh, like you've been doing to Craig his whole life?" Mum snaps, making me bite my lip as my stress levels start to boil over. There isn't a single week of my life that I HAVEN'T had to listen to an argument like this...

"Craig does as he is told," Grandma Walker says in a smug tone of voice. "Tell her, Craig."

"I- um," dad stammers.

"Craig!" Grandma Walker snaps. "Tell her! Now!"

"Don't bother, Craig," mum sneers. "If you're going to defend someone who wished your child dead, then you don't deserve to call yourself a father. And I certainly don't want you calling yourself my husband anymore."

"Good!" Grandma Walker says. "I always knew Craig could've done much better than you anyway!"

"Well it's not like I could have done much than him!" Mum yells after dad and Grandma Walker as they storm out of the house together, leaving me, mum and Grandma Jones stood in an awkward silence.

"A-Angela-" grandma says softly.

"I hope you're happy now," mum spits as she grabs her coat and takes out her phone to call a taxi. "Both of you. But especially you, Kayleigh-Ann. Never forget that this is all your fault."

Naturally, after mum leaves, I head up to my bedroom where I stay for the next several hours with my stuffed giraffe's leg lodged firmly between my teeth. Every time I think I'm making progress, I always get dragged back again. Even after I've started transitioning, after I've started taking hormones- after I've started growing facial hair, for god's sake- the world will always conspire to drag me back down again. Now, not only am I estranged from my parents, but my parents are estranged from each other... And it's all my fault.

And yet, I know that if I had done as I was told, if I had been the 'good daughter'... I'd probably not last another year. Now that I've tasted life as 'Ian', I simply can't go back to life as 'Kayleigh-Ann'. A boy's life is one of freedom, one of choice, one of friendship and happiness... All mum offered me was a life of obligation and responsibilities. Even as she was defending me to dad and Grandma Walker, she didn't care about my happiness, only about what I could eventually do for her... Well screw her. Grandma Walker was right about one thing, and one thing only- she doesn't deserve to call herself a mother.

"Ian?" Grandma asks as she knocks on my door, derailing my train of thought. "I've brought you a cup of tea."

"Umm, thanks," I sniffle as grandma lets herself into my room and puts the beverage on my nightstand. "I'm so, so sorry-"

"None of what happened today was your fault," grandma says, having clearly been crying herself. "Quite the opposite, Ian- you're the victim in all this. Your parents should never have got married in the first place, the relationship was doomed from the start. The only thing you're responsible for is keeping them together long after they should have divorced. And your father's mother is pure poison."

"You won't get any argument from me," I whisper as I sip my hot, sweet tea.

"I called your workplace for you, explained what's happened," grandma says, making me grimace.

"Oh- god, work..." I groan.

"It's okay," grandma says softly. "They understood after I explained everything to them. Though they will be expecting you in tomorrow. And I wouldn't pull any sickies in the future if I were you!"

"I don't intend to!" I say, making grandma laugh.

"Good," the elderly woman replies. "Now's the chance to make a fresh start, Ian. The chance to put everything behind you and go forward as the man you want to be, the man you're supposed to be."

"But I've had so many losses," I sigh. "So many setbacks..."

"Then now's the time for you to start winning," grandma says, bringing a determined smile to my face.

----------

"...And that's what I did over my Christmas," I sigh as I help Rob, Neil and Lee set up for our next game of Pandemic Legacy.

"Jesus," Neil whispers. "Sorry to hear that, mate..."

"Mum did actually call later on on Boxing Day," I continue. "Tried to apologise for blaming me and grandma, but it came off as half-arsed, especially when she refused to refer to me as anything other than her 'daughter' and 'Kayleigh-Ann'."

"Note how you said 'tried to apologise'," Lee says.

"Humility was never her strongest suit," I snort. "But that's okay. Like grandma says, I've got to put my losses behind me, got to get on now and try to get some wins under my belt."

"Like talking to that Australian girl?" Neil asks.

"Yeah," I reply. "We've chatted a bit the last couple of days, she's been happy to listen to me pour out my emotions. That way, I don't have to pester you guys with them."

"And we sincerely thank you for that," Lee laughs. "Are we still on for your birthday tomorrow?"

"Hell yeah!" I laugh. "I have every intention of making THAT one of my 'wins'."

"And speaking of 'winning and losing'," Rob says, as he withdraws a small black rectangular box from the board game's box and hands it to me. "Figure you should do the honours."

"Thanks," I laugh as I take box 8 and slowly pull apart its perforated opening.

Much like in the game, in my life, opening the box wasn't the end of the world, as much as it felt like it at the time. It felt like everywhere I went, I was followed by failure, and anger, and recrimination at my choice. Like I had the whole world saying 'you're a disgrace', or 'you've let me down' when in fact I was the one being let down.

Well no more.

I have friends- in Cardiff AND in London- who care about me. I have a grandmother who not only supports me but will go out of her way to ensure I'm happy. I've got my studies. I've got my work, my health and my testosterone. I don't need anything else, especially not 'parents' who see me more as a possession than a person. All things told, I'll probably be happier without them.

I just wish I had the option of being happier with them...

I try not to fidget as the middle-aged man sat in front of me finishes reviewing the information we provided. My clothes aren’t exactly comfortable- but under the circumstances, they could easily have been a lot LESS comfortable.

“Mr. and Mrs. Walker,” the man says, before turning to me and grandma. “Ian, Mrs. Jones.” I try not to smirk as I sense mum and dad- who are only barely keeping their tempers in check- bristle at the use of what is now my real name. “I have reviewed all the evidence presented to me, and there is only one conclusion I can draw.” My heart beats faster as the man- an independent arbiter agreed upon by both my parents and my grandmother- prepares to begin his summary, only to be interrupted before he can say a word.

“So you will make Kayleigh-Ann come home with us?” Mum asks, and this time it’s my turn to bristle at the use of my deadname.

“No,” the arbiter says, making me breathe a sigh of relief. “All the evidence provided shows that Ian has a legitimate case of gender identity dysphoria. To force him to live life as a female would be to cause him unnecessary harm.”

“No- no…” Mum gasps.

“Furthermore,” the arbiter continues, “to force Ian to leave his life in Cardiff would be causing undue stress to what is a delicate psyche. Transitions such as Ian’s are not easy, either from a physical or an emotional standpoint. Ian has a well-developed ‘comfort zone’ here in Cardiff. He must remain here to maximise the chance of him living a happy, fulfilling life.”

“But- but her career,” mum pleads. “All the money we spent, on dance lessons, on acting classes…”

“Children develop new interests all the time and abandon them just as quickly,” the arbiter says. “Ian’s testimony shows that he never desired any of the activities you provided for him anyway, but he is deeply engrossed in the hobbies he has now.”

“NERD hobbies,” mum futilely pleads. “And her career… She was going to be actress, a superstar…”

“I never was,” I mumble, speaking for the first time since the arbiter welcomed us to his office. Immediately, I grimace at the look of fury my voice- not to mention my whole look- brings to mum’s face.

In the seven months since I began testosterone injections, my body has changed a LOT. At first, the change was slow, but then it seemed like all of a sudden, a switch flipped inside my body and I went from ‘all-out girl’ to ‘all-out boy’. All the muscles on my body- on my legs, my arms and even my neck- are firmer and more defined. My whole body is beginning to sprout fine, light hairs- especially my face. The wispy hairs I had on my chin at Christmas were soon joined by whiskers on my cheeks and hairs on my top lip- hairs I had to shave off for today’s meeting, of course, but I’m assured they will grow back soon, and thicker than before. I’m even growing sideburns.

Mentally, testosterone has given me the confidence I never had when I was a girl. ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ would never have dared to speak to mum the way I just did- especially not in the deeper, more Welsh-sounding pitch I’ve adopted as my ‘true’ speaking voice. In my smart trousers, crisp white shirt, tie, black socks and polished black lace-up shoes, I am quite the handsome young man. The girl behind the reception desk of the office block I entered today certainly thought so- it’s just a pity that there are at least two people in the world who stubbornly refuse to see me for who I truly am…

“So that’s that, then?” Mum spits. “Our daughter is dead.”

“Your SON is very much alive!” Grandma growls. “And anytime you want to accept HIM as the MAN HE is, you’re welcome to do so. Aren’t they, Ian?”

“…As long as you say my name,” I say defiantly. “My TRUE name.”

“Unless there’s anything else, I think we’re done here,” the arbiter says, packing away his files. “Mrs. Walker, Mr. Walker, countless people every day take steps to change their gender. This is usually because they are emotionally and/or physically incapable of living in the gender they were assigned at birth. Ian’s decision is not sudden, and from what I can tell, it is not born out of rebellion against your parenting, but out of genuine emotional anguish at living life as a woman. The fact that Ian had contemplated taking his own life should be evidence enough of this.” I do feel a small sense of victory as this last sentence causes mum to avert her gaze.

“Thank you for your time today,” Grandma says as she and I stand up and shake the arbiter’s hand.

“You’re very welcome, Mrs. Jones, Ian,” the arbiter replies. “I hope you enjoy the rest of the Easter holiday!”

“I intend to,” I laugh nervously.

“When he’s not finishing his coursework, anyway!” Grandma says, making me sigh as we leave the small office. However, we’re immediately followed by my parents, and the looks of disappointment on both of their faces is palpable.

“You could have been so much,” mum spits at me, and for a moment, it looks as though she’s about to raise her hand to her forehead to signify that she’s having another bout of ‘depression’, but a stern look from Grandma quickly prevents this.

“HE still can,” grandma growls.

“All the money we wasted on you growing up,” mum whispers. “Your friend Abbey-Gayle is now a superstar, Kayleigh-Ann. That could have been you. That SHOULD have been you. But no, you’re too selfish to know what’s best for you. You just want to play your silly nerd games with your silly nerd friends. How pathetic.”

“Worshipping fake, plastic people like the Angels is what’s really pathetic!” I retort, and despite grandma’s glare, mum’s hand finds its way to her forehead and she lets out a low moan of pain.

“Craig…” Mum moans. “Take me home…”

“Of course,” dad says, gingerly leading my ‘unwell’ mother toward the exit, before turning and looking me straight in the eye. “If we end up splitting up again, it’ll be your fault.”

“Get out of my sight!” Grandma growls in a voice that even makes me shrivel. Once my ‘parents’ have left the corridor we’re on, I let out a long sigh of relief, which quickly turns into an exasperated laugh at the ridiculousness of my situation.

“You know,” I say, “he once yelled at me for crying too loud and disturbing mum when she was quote-unquote depressed.”

“That ‘man’ doesn’t deserve to call himself a man, much less a father,” grandma spits as we head back to her car. “I don’t know why they got back together after splitting up at Christmas…”

“If I had to guess, it was ‘thanks’ to the fire-breathing lizard who gave birth to him,” I spit, before grimacing as grandma chastises me with a whack on my arm.

“That’s no way to speak about your grandmother,” grandma says firmly. “Not that she deserves to call herself a grandmother any more than that man deserves to call himself a father.”

“She actually wished me dead,” I retort. “Blood relative or not, I’m never going to feel anything other than hatred for her.”

“…That’s your right, I suppose,” grandma says as we get in her car, and I grimace as I realise what I just said.

“I- of course, I’ll only ever love you,” I babble. “For everything you’ve done for me-“

“Thank you, Ian,” grandma says with a smile. “What do you have planned for the rest of the day?”

“Going to do some coursework,” I say, making grandma chuckle. “Then gym this evening. Need to build up my muscles, you know…”

“Ah, of course,” grandma chuckles. “Good job we didn’t tell your parents that you get punched in the face every week!”

“I only punch bags,” I laugh. “Nothing that punches back, heh.”

“Well either way,” grandma says, “it’s a far cry from what you used to do on Tuesday evenings!”

“That’s for sure,” I laugh as I remember back to when Tuesday evenings used to mean wrapping my body in an itchy pair of tights and a sweaty black leotard and dancing on my toes, sometimes until they bled. That’s not to say that there isn’t any bleeding in my current hobby, of course- I’ve scraped my knuckles plenty of times despite taping them up- but I would gladly take a hundred boxing sessions over a single minute of a ballet lesson any day of the week.

…Fortunately, though, coaching sessions come individually rather than in hundreds, so after working hard on my college coursework and eating a filling, meaty dinner (another thing my ‘parents’ will no doubt object to), I head up to my bedroom to change into a pair of loose black shorts and a pair of black trainers. After lacing up my trainers, I pause before picking out which shirt I want today. For my birthday in December, I was given two t-shirts (of a kind), both of which are red, and both of which I have worn so much in the last three months I’ve practically worn them out. This is because one bears the logo of the Welsh national football team, whilst the other bears the logo of Arsenal Football Club.

Naturally, I plump for the Arsenal shirt, especially as Mr. Wright (my coach) is an Arsenal fan, and inevitably, my shirt gets me my obligatory high-five from Neil and my equally obligatory boos from Rob and Lee as I climb into Rob’s father’s car.

“Just because you can’t handle a proper football team,” I snort, making Neil laugh as Rob and Lee’s boos intensify.

“Proper football teams actually win things sometimes,” Lee retorts, making me snort with laughter.

“How’d it go today, Ian?” Rob asks, immediately darkening my mood. “It was your big meeting with the arbiter today, wasn’t it? I’m guessing as you’re sat in the car with us, it went-“

“Every time I see my parents, I just want to punch something,” I moan, interrupting Rob before my anger boils over at the memory of my parents today.

“…O-kay then,” Lee says, breaking the awkward silence I caused. “You’re definitely going to the right place, then!”

“Ugh, sorry,” I moan. “Sorry, Mr. Goddard, I just- ugh. Even THINKING about my so-called parents frustrates me.”

“It’s okay, Ian,” Rob’s father says in his calm teacher’s voice. “If I experienced even a tenth of what you’ve gone through, I’d be frustrated all the time too. Just- make sure you take it out on the bags, okay?”

“Can do,” I say with a tired laugh as we head toward the city centre gym that will hopefully help to eliminate my stress.

However, as I take out my frustrations on Mr. Wright’s bags, I can’t help but visualise my parents’ faces being in front of every punch I throw. When they’d called and asked for an independent arbiter to look into things, I’d initially been pleased- I took it as a sign that mum and dad wanted to talk again, they wanted to communicate… I soon realised that the only thing they wanted to ‘communicate’ was their disappointment in me and their desire to have me give up my life as Ian and go back to being ‘Kayleigh-Ann’, no matter how miserable it would make me. They honestly believed that the arbiter would side with them and somehow find a way to legally force me to return to my old life. No, my parents aren’t interested in communicating, or at the very least, they aren’t interested in a dialogue- all they want is to be told that they are unquestionably in the right, and for me to just give in and accept my fate…

“Gah!” I yell as I hit the bag with the hardest left hook I can muster up, startling the other exercisers around me.

“Whoa, Ian,” Mr. Wright says, gently easing me away from the heavily-abused bag. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I reply as I take several deep breaths. “…Okay, maybe I’m not.”

“I heard that it was your thing with your parents today,” Mr. Wright says in a soft, sympathetic voice. “Didn’t go well, then?”

“Couldn’t have gone better, actually,” I reply. “The arbiter was 100% in my favour. But my parents… Ugh. ‘We promise to abide by the decision as long as it’s the right one’. That’s what they- well, they didn’t say it, but that’s definitely what they were thinking.”

“Well- no offence, Ian, but what WERE you expecting?” Mr. Wright asks. “From what I heard, Christmas went even worse.”

“I was expecting them to have at least tried to see things from my perspective,” I moan.

“You were expecting them to admit defeat?” Mr. Wright argues, before stepping back as I involuntarily shoot him an angry glare. “Just playing devil’s advocate, I don’t mean anything by it… I couldn’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through, or what you went through, living life as the wrong gender. Then again, I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like if one of my children suddenly came home and told me they were transgendered.”

“There was nothing sud-“ I retort, before the older man cuts me off.

“’Nothing sudden about it’, yes, I know,” Mr. Wright interrupts. “And from your perspective, granted, it wasn’t sudden. But your parents spent seventeen years thinking they were raising a daughter, and had no reason to believe otherwise.”

“There WERE clues,” I mumble. “My hair…”

“When he was fifteen Neil had hair down to his shoulders,” Mr. Wright shrugs. “When he was thirteen he stopped supporting Cardiff and started supporting Arsenal. Kids rebel all the time.”

“…I am NOT apologising for being who I am,” I state firmly. “I will NOT compromise my- my anything for them!”

“And you shouldn’t have to,” Mr. Wright says as he sets up another punching bag for me. “Ian, you know I’m always going to be 100% on your side. I’ve said I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to have a child who was transgendered. But I know I’d still give them all the love and support in the world, because that’s what parents are supposed to do.”

“And children are supposed to unconditionally obey their parents?” I ask.

“…Maybe when they’re six,” Mr. Wright laughs. “But seventeen? You’re all but an adult, your own person. So you’re not going to be an actor, or a model. I always thought Neil was going to be a rugby player. Instead, he’s a computer programmer. And if he enjoys it and is good at it, then I couldn’t be happier.”

“And if he ever decides to pull on a dress?” I ask, catching the middle-aged man off guard.

“…Then he’ll still be my so- still be my child, and I’ll still love and support him unconditionally,” Mr. Wright says. “Don’t give up on your parents, Ian. You’re still their child, and that’s a bond that’s impossible to break. I’m sure they still love you. But they need to learn to love you unconditionally.”

“I’m not holding my breath,” I growl as I resume my punches.

“Just don’t lose ALL hope,” Mr. Wright advises.

I suppose Mr. Wright isn’t ENTIRELY wrong. In all the arguments we’ve had since I came out, mum seems much more upset that I’ve chosen a career away from showbusiness, than my choice to live life as a man. I’d be willing to be that if I became a male model, or a male actor, she’d immediately forget any objections she has about my life. Even if the only acting job I got was on a ‘nerd show’ like Doctor Who.

After the boxing practice ends (and I feel my muscles grow just a tiny bit bigger), Mr. Goddard drives all of us back to our respective homes, where I opt for an early night. As I change from my workout clothes into my pyjamas, though, I can’t help but sigh as I catch a glimpse of my naked body in my wardrobe mirror. My arms may be muscular and my legs hairy, but my waist is still narrower than my hips, my chest is still 'adorned' with two very unwelcome shapes and there is a distinct lack of 'shape' between my legs, reminding me that I never truly belonged in ‘girl world’... But I’ll never truly belong in ‘boy world’, no matter how much testosterone I have injected into me, or how short I cut my hair, or how large my muscles grow. Or even if I undergo any surgeries…

“Ugh,” I spit as I stare into the wide, cartoonish eyes of my favourite stuffed giraffe. “…No, Melman, you get to keep your leg unbitten today. Though it was a damned close thing.”

After pulling on the loose vest and shorts that make up my sleepwear, I climb into bed, but I give my phone a final check before switching out the light- and I’m glad I did, as the single notification on the screen brings a genuine smile to my face for the first time today.

‘Hey, hope it went well today x’ the message reads, though what makes me smile isn’t the content of the message, but the name of the sender- ‘Ella Henry’.

‘Not great,’ I reply with a frowning emoji. ‘In bed now, talk tomorrow.’ I smile again as I toss my phone back on my nightstand, before switching off my lamp and trying to get to sleep. My parents might suck, but I at least have some family who love me- and I have a group of great friends, both male and female, both here and in London, who’ll support me and give me the love I need.

…’Love’ that comes in many shapes and sizes, as I’m reminded the following morning when I arrive at Rob’s house for our traditional Wednesday gaming session. As it’s the school holidays, Rob has promised something considerably more ‘epic’ than the usual 2 vs 2 battles we have, and as I walk into his game room, I see that he’s kept his promise.

“Hi Ian,” Rob says as he and Simon (his 14 year old brother) set up the tiny starships on his vast gaming table. “Hope you’re feeling better today.”

“Much better to be here,” I laugh as I set my own case of model starships down on the table and begin unpacking, but before I do so, I take a quick glance around the room.

Rob’s father is the head teacher of a local secondary school, whilst his mother is a lecturer at Cardiff University, and as such, they have a LOT of disposable income. And as they- like Rob and Simon- are huge nerds, a lot of it gets spent on what my mum would immediately dismiss as ‘nerd stuff’. An entire wall of this room is filled with videogames, some of them over twice my age, while DVD box sets and science-fiction books (both novels and reference books) cover half of another wall, and the other wall is filled with volumes of comic books. But it’s the board games and miniatures that take pride of place in the room. Some of the larger, more intricately-painted miniatures are even displayed in upright glass cabinets that you usually find in a jewellers, or maybe even a museum. There are even displays of older toys, such as Transformers and some vast, complicated Lego sets.

My mother would probably catch fire the instant she set foot in this room, and the knowledge that her ‘future superstar’ was spending time in this room would probably cause the same reaction. And yet, I feel more at ease in this room than I ever did somewhere like Miss Fullerton’s ballet class… Or even in my old London home. One thing’s for certain- I’m much more welcomed in this house than I ever was in that ‘home’.

“You got your ships?” Simon asks me.

“Three of them,” I sigh. “This is one hell of an expensive hobby, heh.”

“Yeah… Sorry about that,” Rob grimaces. “Still, it could be worse…” An excited laugh escapes my mouth as Rob heads to one of the room’s display cabinets and withdraws two painted, textured cubes, each one roughly the size of a football.

“Money is irrelevant,” Simon says in a monotone chant. “Resistance is futile.” I smirk as Simon and his brother begin sorting through the upgrade cards they plan to field alongside their cubes, before reaching into my case for a handwritten note I’d prepared for just this occasion.

“Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!” I retort, earning laughs from the two brothers, and from Neil and Lee, who have just arrived bearing cases of their own.

“I’m guessing you didn’t mention to your mum yesterday that you’ve been binge-watching Star Trek on Netflix,” Lee says, making me laugh again. “And your pronunciation was a little off.”

“Dyslexia sucks when you’re reading English, let alone Klingon,” I reply. “And it didn’t come up. I’m saving that for when I need to give her a heart attack.”

“And I thought the online arguments about Discovery were volatile,” Neil laughs. “You sure you’re okay today, Ian? Dad mentioned yesterday that you-“

“I’m fine, honestly,” I say, though I instantly grimace at the unintended hostility in my voice.

“Whoa, Ian,” Neil says, “save the ‘Klingon temper’ for the Borg, okay?”

“Sorry,” I sigh, “Just a bit stressed about this whole ‘parents’ thing, that’s all.”

“Think we all would be,” Rob says quietly as he continues to set up his cubes. “Mate, we’re not counsellors or anything-“

“And don’t want to be,” Lee interrupts, earning snorts of laughter from everyone.

“Don’t you have a counsellor, anyway?” Neil asks.

“Yeah,” I sigh. “I saw her on Monday, she gave me a few coping techniques… Didn’t work. Just the sight of my parents’ faces makes me want to scream.”

“Well like I said,” Neil says, “save that aggression for the Borg. Or the bags, every Tuesday.”

“Or the bog, if you’re stomach’s upset,” Simon says, leading to an awkward silence. “What? I thought it was funny…”

“What I was trying to say,” Rob says firmly, “is that we’re not good at the whole ‘emotion’ thing. But anytime you want a gaming session, or a trip down the gym to take your mind off of things, just yell, we’ll be here, right guys?”

“Yeah, like we need an excuse for a session!” Lee laughs. “Seriously though Ian, Rob IS right.”

“Unfortunately, Lee’s also right,” Neil says, laughing as Lee flicks a card at his face. “Anytime you need to talk… You’re better off finding someone else. Didn’t you say you had a girlfriend- well, not ‘girlfriend’ girlfriend, but girl who is a friend, friend who is a girl, that sort of thing?”

“Yeah,” Lee concurs. “That Australian girl, right? The one who looks like a supermodel?” I try not to laugh as Simon’s head immediately jerks upward at the mention of the word ‘supermodel’. Simon’s brother, however, isn’t so kind.

“Just as long as your head’s the only thing that ‘rises’,” Rob teases his brother, who rolls his eyes in response.

“And I thought I was having trouble adjusting to testosterone,” I quip, knowing the guys well enough to know that the joke will go over well.

“Shut up,” Simon mumbles as I check my phone to see if Ella has contacted me since last night- and much to my delight, there’s one unread Facebook message waiting for me.

‘Free all day when you want a chat,’ the message- which is, of course, from Ella- reads, bringing a smile to my face.

“You sure that Australian girl ISN’T your girlfriend?” Neil teases. “To be fair I’d be grinning like an idiot too if a six foot tall blonde underwear model sent me Facebook messages too.”

“You’d be grinning like an idiot if ANY woman sent you a Facebook message,” I retort, earning a fist bump from Lee as we continue to setup our fleets ahead of the game.

With the game being as epic in scope as it is, it takes us the entire morning and most of the afternoon to complete (though gratifyingly, it’s mine, Neil and Lee’s team that wins). The five of us get so engrossed in the game that we barely notice the time passing, and by the time we’ve sorted and packed away our equipment, it’s almost 4pm. It’s only as I’m putting my phone back in my pocket, ready for the journey home, that I remember I have an unanswered message waiting for me.

“We are so doing that again,” Lee laughs, while collecting all the soft drink cans we emptied today and placing them in a carrier bag. “That was so much easier to keep track of than the Dominion War match we had during half term.”

“Four ships each definitely seems to work, right Ian?” Neil asks, snapping me out of my ‘trance’.

“Hmm?” I ask. “Umm, yeah, definitely, especially now I’ve got the Negh’Var.”

“…Lost in thought?” Neil teases. “We don’t need to ask why, do we?”

“We don’t need to ask ‘who’, either,” Simon laughs, no doubt glad to repay one of my earlier digs.

“Shut up,” I mumble. “To be honest I’d forgotten she’d even sent me a message.”

“Well, we’d better not keep you,” Rob laughs as he leads me, Neil and Lee out to the latter’s mother’s car. “Let us know what it’s like ‘down under’!”

“Close your mouth and stop talking,” I retort, making Rob and Simon laugh as I wave them goodbye.

“Eh, you know we’re just having a bit of fun,” Neil laughs as we head home. “It’s just a thing guys do, give each other a hard time about girls.”

“Not that Neil would know anything about that,” Lee says with a snort of laughter.

“My point proved,” Neil says. “And as we said before, we’re all just a tiny bit jealous that you’ve got a seriously hot, tall blonde on the other end of that phone.”

“Even though she’s-“ I begin.

“Even though she’s NOT your girlfriend, yes,” Neil interrupts, finishing my sentence for me.

“You know,” I muse, “it’s not all THAT different when it comes to a group of girls. I’ve told about the fake boyfriend I used to- well, not ‘have’. ‘Use’, maybe?”

“What, the guy with glasses?” Lee asks.

“That’s him,” I nod. “And I used to hang out with this ‘clique’ of other- no, not ‘other’, this clique of GIRLS, Ella being one of them. I got a LOT of- well, let’s call it what it is, a lot of abuse from them about my choice of man. The only difference is, they WEREN’T joking.”

“Yeah, I remember being a teenaged girl all too well,” Lee’s mother sighs. “Trust me- you’re much better off away from THAT.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Charlton,” I reply. “Ironic thing is, the one who badmouthed Ollie the most was his own sister.”

“Yeah, moaning about other girls is something else you’re better off away from,” Neil says, making me sigh and roll my eyes.

“Point taken,” I concede.

“…Got a good amount of cans today,” Lee says, breaking the awkward silence in the car.

“Why ARE you collecting cans, anyway?” I ask. “Just recycling or something?”

“Nah, I only want aluminium cans,” Lee explains. “All will be revealed, honest.”

“If you say so,” I shrug as the car trundles toward our respective homes.

After filling grandma in on the day’s activities and eating a delicious, filling dinner of pork chops in gravy, I head up to my bedroom on the promise of doing more coursework, but the second I close the door, I grab my tablet computer and log into Facebook, grinning when I see that the person I want to talk to isn’t just online, but already typing me a message.

‘Hey Ian!’ Ella types before I even have the chance to start typing.

‘Hi Ella!’ I type.

‘Hope you had a better day today than yesterday x,’ Ella types.

‘Don’t know how it could’ve been worse,’ I reply, earning a ‘hugging’ emoji from Ella.

‘Well it must have been better ‘cause of how late you’ve logged into Facebook!’ Ella types, making me groan as a wave of guilt washes over my body.

‘Sorry,’ I type. ‘I know I said ‘talk tomorrow’, I kinda got caught up in things. My bad.’

‘S’okay,’ Ella replies. ‘Fun things, I hope?’

‘Depends on whether or not you think playing with miniature Star Trek ships is fun,’ I type, laughing as Ella replies with a ‘rolling eyes’ emoji.

‘Wouldn’t be my idea of fun,’ the tall blonde girl types. ‘But if you like it, then it’s cool, I guess.’

‘It’s supremely UNcool,’ I retort. ‘That’s why I like it so much!’

‘Lol,’ Ella types with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji. ‘Tbf I did like the new series that was on earlier in the year.’

‘Discovery?’ I type. ‘It was okay, I guess.’

‘Obviously I’m not going to tell the other girls I watched it,’ Ella types with a ‘winking’ emoji.

‘You still hang out with the other girls, then?’ I ask. ‘Thought everyone went their separate ways after Abbey-Gayle joined the Angels?’

‘We did for a bit,’ Ella types. ‘Think Brooke and Georgie resented me getting signed to Heavenly Talent too. But it’s Abbey-Gayle’s birthday on Friday, and she invited us all along to celebrate with her, so think we might be cool now.’

‘Okay,’ I type as I feel my brain instantly start to numb at the mention of the other girls’ lives.

‘It’ll be a PROPER Angel party too,’ Ella types, her excitement plain in her words. ‘At Charlotte’s house, costumes, the whole works.’

‘Cool,’ I type.

‘Playboy Bunny costumes in case you’re wondering,’ Ella types with a ‘grinning’ emoji. ‘Think it’s ‘cos it’s Easter weekend. Already got mine sorted out!’

‘Cool,’ I type again, earning a ‘neutral’ emoji from Ella.

‘I’m boring you, aren’t I?’ Ella types.

‘No, not at all,’ I reply, though I inwardly frown at the lie.

‘Yes I am,’ Ella types. ‘It’s okay, Ian, you don’t need to pretend to be interested. You suffered through enough of that back when you were Kayleigh-Ann.’

‘Suffer is the right word for it,’ I type. ‘I would honestly rather wear a noose than a Playboy Bunny costume.’

‘Aww xx,’ Ella types, followed by a ‘frowning’ and a ‘hugging’ emoji.

‘If my parents had their way, they’d probably be my only choices, lol,’ I type.

‘It went THAT bad yesterday?’ Ella asks with another ‘hugging’ emoji.

‘Worse,’ I reply. ‘Mum still sees me as her property and dad’s more useless than a chocolate teapot. Just thank god my other grandmother wasn’t there.’

‘That sucks,’ Ella types with yet another ‘hugging’ emoji. ‘Really wish I was there so I could give you these hugs in person.’

‘Facebook hugs work just as well,’ I type.

‘I disagree,’ Ella types. ‘You know, when Abbey-Gayle invited us to her party, she really just invited me, but said ‘bring along the rest of the gang’. Technical, you know…’

‘Seriously?’ I ask. ‘After what I just said about Playboy Bunny costumes?’

‘Well obviously YOU won’t wear one, BOY!’ Ella types with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji. ‘There’ll be other boys at the party, think they’ll just be wearing smart shirts and trousers. It’ll give you a chance to take your mind off things.’

‘I dunno,’ I type. ‘It’s not cheap getting the train from Cardiff to London. I doubt I’d be able to sell going to an adult, booze-filled party to Grandma, and I’d need somewhere to stay overnight…’

‘NERD,’ Ella types with another ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji. ‘You can stay with me! And try looking for reasons TO come rather than reasons NOT to come. You’ll get to see me again, for a start. You know the last time we saw each other was Spain last year?’

‘It would be nice to see you again,’ I type, earning a ‘grinning’ emoji from Ella.

‘And you know Jamie-Lee Burke’s fiancé is transgendered, right?’ Ella asks. ‘He’ll be at the party too, you can talk to him about stuff. Have you ever actually spoken to another transgendered boy before?’

‘No, actually,’ I type. ‘I sometimes get the chance to talk to other people at my counsellor’s office but they’re all girls, not boys.’

‘Sounds like two good reasons to come to London, then!’ Ella types.

‘I can think of two very good reasons to stay away from London,’ I type with a ‘sad’ emoji. ‘Three, if you count my other grandma. And it’ll be awkward catching up with Brooke and Georgie, neither of them have readded me- well, ‘Ian’ on Facebook.’

‘They both had a hard time with the change,’ Ella types with a ‘frowning’ emoji. ‘Georgie especially had a hard time understanding how someone could want to change the way you did.’

‘Georgie has a hard time understanding how to use a door handle,’ I type.

‘Lol true!’ Ella replies with a ‘laughing’ emoji. ‘Okay so maybe I can’t force you to come to London. God knows I wouldn’t be any better than your parents if I did. And I get that you want to start fresh. But if you come to London, I guarantee you’ll have fun, I guarantee you won’t have ANY contact with your parents, and I’ll stay with you the whole time so you won’t have OMGeorgie giving you brain damage!’

‘Won’t your boyfriend have something to say about that?’ I ask with a ‘stuck out tongue’ emoji.

‘Would if I had one,’ Ella replies, surprising me- but even more surprising is her choice of a ‘laughing’ emoji to accompany her message. ‘Got rid of him a couple of weeks ago.’

‘You never said anything!’ I type with a ‘shocked’ emoji.

‘We weren’t even serious,’ Ella retorts. ‘Didn’t even change my Facebook status.’

‘You were really excited about him at the start of the relationship, though,’ I type as I suddenly find my heart beating faster.

‘Meh, every start of a relationship is exciting,’ Ella retorts. ‘You’ll find this when you FINALLY get yourself a cute girl!’

‘Don’t hold your breath,’ I type, laughing as Ella replies with first a ‘stuck out tongue’ emoji, followed by a ‘shy, giggling’ one.

‘So…’ Ella types. ‘Coming to London?’

‘I’ll talk to my grandma,’ I type as I let out a long, loud sigh.

‘Yay!’ Ella replies with a ‘cheering’ emoji, followed by a ‘hugging’ one. ‘It’s going to be SO cool to see you again, I mean, I’ve seen the photos, but I can’t wait to see your hunky boy’s body in the flesh!’ Okay, I think to myself. If she wasn’t flirting with me before, she has GOT to be now…

‘So all being well, see you Friday morning?’ I type.

‘Or even tomorrow, if you want,’ Ella replies. ‘Give us more time to catch up…’

‘I’ll ask grandma and get back to you,’ I type, my hands involuntarily shaking with excitement.

‘Don’t keep me hanging on too long,’ Ella types with a ‘winking’ emoji as I logout of Facebook and take several deep breaths to try to calm my racing heart.

Ella HAD to have been flirting with me throughout that conversation. She HAD to have been. We’ve chatted before, and sure, she’s always been ‘familiar’ with me because of how long we’ve been friends, but still, ‘wanting to hug me in real life’, ‘wanting to see my hunky boy’s body in the flesh’? Those aren’t just ‘friendly’ words. Unless, of course, she’s teasing me, just like the guys teased me earlier today… Why would a seriously sexy girl like Ella be interested in a slender, three inches shorter guy who spends a lot of his time watching Star Trek? Not to mention a guy who has boobs and a vagina? My counsellor has said that with increased testosterone level comes an increased sex drive, and I’ve often found myself getting ‘distracted’ by some of the more attractive girls at college… But no matter how vivid my imagination may get, consciously I know that those girls would never be interested in a slender, short guy who’s a known nerd. Is Ella’s flirting genuine, or just a figment of my testosterone-fuelled imagination? One thing’s for certain, there’s only one way to find out…

“Hi, um, grandma, “ I say nervously as I walk into the living room. “Umm, I- I need to-“

“Whatever it is, just say it,” grandma says without even looking up from her Kindle. “I’ve been a parent long enough to know what THAT tone of voice means.”

“I’ve, um, been invited to a friend’s birthday party,” I explain. No need to ‘dump’ it all on grandma at once, a bit at a time will do…

“Oh,” grandma says. “Well, it’s hardly like you need my permission to go, I mean, you ARE seventeen… How old will this ‘friend’ be?”

“…Nineteen, I think,” I mumble.

“I see,” grandma says in a clipped voice. “Well, you’re aware of the law about underage drinking, and you’re aware that I expect you to follow them.”

“Yes, grandma,” I mumble. “The, um, there’s something else about the party, it’s um, it’s kinda… In London.”

“Oh,” grandma says. “When is this party?”

“Friday,” I mumble.

“…I trust you’d be going with other friends, and not just by yourself?” Grandma asks.

“Oh- definitely,” I say. “It’s, um, it’s Ella, the Australian girl I told you about. I mean, it’s not HER birthday, but I’d be going with her-“

“Well she does seem like a sensible young woman,” grandma interrupts, and obviously I know better than to complain about being cut off. “And I suppose it IS your holiday, you’ve worked hard all year, you deserve a little break… But are you sure that you want to go all the way to London?”

“…Not, 100%, no,” I mumble.

“That’s what I thought,” grandma says. “Ian… Like I said, you don’t need my permission to go if this is what you really want. You ARE practically an adult, after all, and you can make your own decisions, I just don’t want you making the wrong decisions.”

“And you think me going to London would be the wrong decision?” I ask.

“It IS the city where your parents live,” grandma says softly.

“And about ten million other people,” I retort.

“Good point,” grandma says. “Ian, you’ve been through a lot this week. Yes, it’s your holiday, but you should relax for the next few weeks. The last thing you need right now is stress, and travelling to a big city on your own is my idea of stressful.”

“I did live there for a long time,” I counter.

“Ian,” grandma sighs, sitting back in her chair. “If you want to go, you go. Your home will still be here when you come back. Just- just make sure you look after yourself, okay?”

“I will, I promise,” I say with a grin as grandma tuts, before letting out a soft chuckle. “I, um, I should go and pack.”

“Why?” Grandma asks. “I thought you said the party was on Friday?”

“Yeah…” I grimace. “Ella kinda- kinda invited me to go down tomorrow, you know, to catch up…”

“…This ‘Ella’ girl sounds like she’s got you wrapped around her little finger!” Grandma laughs, her laughter increasing in volume as I roll my eyes.

“It’s not like THAT,” I retort. “We- we’re just friends, fancy chatting face to face instead of, you know, Facebook to Facebook for a change.”

“If you insist,” Grandma laughs as I leave the room. “All I know is that she put that smile back on your face VERY quickly after yesterday.”

As I pack my small travel suitcase for the weekend, I’m forced to concede that grandma is, of course, correct. Yesterday, I was so stressed I felt like tearing down the punching bag I was using and instead beating a hole in the wall behind it. I wanted to forget that my parents, and by extension, everything about them- even the city they lived in- ever existed. Now, here I am packing a bag and preparing to travel to that city. Even though it's remote, there is a chance I may even see them, or worse yet, my other grandmother, during my stay. But I'm willing to risk that chance anyway. And all for a friend I barely even liked when we used to hang out together.

Well, 'Kayleigh-Ann' barely liked Ella. 'Ian', on the other hand, likes her a lot. Ella's always been there for me, willing to listen to my stresses, to cheer me up when I'm down... In a way, she's an even better friend than the three guys I hang out with. Sure, we have less in common, but there's more to being friends than simply sharing hobbies and interests, right?

Nonetheless, Rob, Neil and Lee are still my friends, so after I finish packing, I grab my phone (my tablet computer having already been packed, of course) and log onto Facebook, opening a new group chat with the three young men.

'Hi guys,' I hastily type. 'Just FYI I'm not going to be around for the next couple of days, am off to London for a bit. Should be back by Saturday.'

'Okay,' Rob almost immediately replies. 'Everything okay, Ian? I mean with your parents.'

'It's fine,' I reply. 'I'm not going to see them, I'm just meeting up with a friend.'

Typical,' Lee types. 'Gets a better offer and immediately jumps on a train.'

'And we all know who the better offer was from, don't we?' Neil types, making me roll my eyes as the conversation briefly pauses.

'We're waiting,' Lee types.

'Okay, fine, I'm going to see Ella,' I type, earning grinning emojis from all three boys. 'I'm just going to catch up, that's all. It's one of our mutual friends' birthdays on Friday, I'll say hi, see how everyone is, I'll be back by Saturday, as I said.'

'Assuming you can tear yourself away from the Aussie hottie, anyway,' Neil types. 'Seriously, mate, well done! I'd probably move to London if she snapped her fingers at me.'

'Think we've already done THAT joke to death,' I type, earning 'lol's from both Rob and Lee.

'Seriously though, thanks for letting us know," Rob types. 'And have fun!'

'Will do,' I type with a smiling emoji.

'Would ask you to bring back a souvenir,' Lee types. 'But I'm not sure I'd be able to hide a pair of worn panties anywhere.'

'Oh fuck off,' I type, earning more 'lol's from Rob and Neil. 'G2g now. See you Saturday!'

'Enjoy,' Neil types with a 'sticking out tongue' emoji as I logout and snort at Lee's sexist attitude.

He's always been by far the bluntest of the three guys, and thinks nothing of making those sort of jokes for shock value, but the way he spoke about Ella... Something about it got under my skin. Just because I've rejected womanhood doesn't mean I have to attack it, after all.

Rather than dwell on Lee's poor attitude, I instead put it to the back of my mind and try not to let it bother me as I end the day doing some coursework before opting for an early night ahead of an early morning tomorrow.

The following morning, grandma drops me off at Cardiff Central Station just after 8:10am, and I will confess to feeling some nerves as I get on the train. Obviously, this won’t be the first time I’ve travelled on a train by myself- I made the reverse journey a year and a half ago- but it will be the first time ‘Ian’ will have travelled by himself, and the further away from Cardiff I get, the more isolated I feel as I realise that this will also be the first time ‘Ian’ has been separated from the people he knows and loves. The arbiter was right- I do have a nice, safe comfort zone in Cardiff, and the further away I get from it, the more anxious I feel, especially given what happened on Tuesday. By the time we arrive at Swindon station, it’s all I can do not to jump off the train and get on one straight back to Wales…

However, a quick glance in the train window reminds me that however much I love my ‘comfort zone’, it’s time for me to literally man up. I can’t lock myself away in my bedroom forever, it’s good to try to break out of the comfort zone once in a while. To the untrained eye, I look just like a boy. No one’s likely to ‘clock’ me, and even if they do, they’re unlikely to care. And it’s not like I’ll be exploring London by myself, Ella will be there, as will many of my other friends… However, one of ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s friends was once kidnapped by her father and forced to live life as a boy. But Laura was twelve when that happened, physically she was very much a child, unable to do anything physically, whereas I’m seventeen, 5’ 7”, very physically fit and with several months of boxing training under my belt. If dad tries anything like Laura’s father did, he’ll be in for one HELL of a surprise.

By the time the train pulls into Paddington station, my adrenaline is pumping so much that I almost hope that I do get into a fight, but as I step off the train, my nerves are soothed when I see a very tall, very blonde girl stood in the crowd. All of a sudden, my anxieties disappear, but the butterflies in my stomach remain, especially when Ella’s eyes meet mine and a wide grin spreads across her face- and much to my surprise, a wide grin quickly spreads across my face as well as I see her walk toward me, her long, slender legs encased in shiny black tights poking out from underneath a short black skirt. The second I step off the train and away from the crowd, Ella rushes over to me and wraps me in a tight hug, giggling excitedly into my ear.

“Welcome back to London, MISTER Freeman!” Ella squeaks as her hugs lift me off my feet (in addition to being taller to begin with, she’s also wearing a casual pair of three inch heels that make her almost a head taller than me).

“Thanks,” I laugh as I try to wriggle out of Ella’s tight squeeze. “It’s good to be back- though you’re kinda crushing my ribs!”

“Oops!” Ella giggles as she puts me down, our ‘embrace’ having attracted a lot of attention from onlookers. “Sorry, Ian- I mean, you know, sorry, MATE! I’m just so stoked to see you again… It’s been months. And you have REALLY changed, you know?”

“Thanks,” I laugh. “You’ve kinda changed too… Have you actually got taller since I last saw you?”

“Nope, still 5’ 10”,” Ella shrugs. “But then again, I’m not the one taking ‘stud’ hormones, heh!” I giggle as Ella grabs my growing biceps, before sighing as it turns into yet another hug.

“Ribs!” I protest as Ella lifts me up again.

“Oh come on, I’m not squeezing THAT hard,” Ella moans.

“…It’s kinda the things on top of the ribs that are uncomfortable,” I mumble, making Ella grimace as she releases me.

“Sorry…” Ella sighs as we climb into a waiting taxi. “It’s just- you know, you have REALLY changed in the last seven months. I genuinely wouldn’t have picked you for ever having been a girl.”

“Thanks!” I say with a giggle. “You know, you seem a lot more… Excitable since the last time I saw you.”

“Nah, I’m just happy to see you again,” Ella sighs. “Though it’s not like I want to jump into bed with you or anything, heh. It hasn’t been the same since you- well, since ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ left.”

“Yeah,” I mumble, feeling oddly disappointed at Ella not ‘desiring’ me. “Though you know- god, this will probably sound weird… I actually like you better as a friend for ‘Ian’ than I ever did for ‘Kayleigh-Ann’. Umm, no offence, I just mean- you know-“

“Yeah, I think I get what you mean,” Ella says. “When you were Kayleigh-Ann, you, like, had an image to keep up, but now that you’re Ian, you can be who you always wanted to be, right?”

“Something like that,” I shrug. “I don’t have to pretend anymore, and because you’ve accepted me for who I really am… That sort of thing.”

“Well, I’m just glad that we ARE friends,” Ella giggles, giving me another gentle hug. “Though I thought that boys WEREN’T supposed to talk about their feelings?”

“Oh, whatever,” I shrug. “I’m having my hormones scrambled, I need SOMEONE to talk to, and I only see my counsellor once a week. I think the rule only applies to two boys talking to each other about feelings, anyway. I’m allowed to talk to a girlfriend if I want. Umm, by which I mean, you know, not ‘girlfriend’ but ‘friend who’s a girl’-“

“I get it, I get it,” Ella whispers, leading to an awkward silence in the taxi.

“So… Umm, where are we heading?” I ask.

“My house first,” Ella says. “Just to drop off your bags. Then I promised I’d take you round to see the other girls.”

“Oh- seriously?” I ask. “I missed you, but I didn’t miss Brooke and I DEFINITELY didn’t miss Georgie!”

“I know,” Ella sighs. “But they DID miss you, and when I told them that you were coming down to London for the weekend, they demanded to see you, and I couldn’t say no-“

“It’s okay,” I sigh. “My counsellor’s actually said that it’s good to, you know, ‘confront the past’ like that. Show the girls that ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ is gone for good, give them time to get to know and accept ‘Ian’, that sort of thing.”

“Yeah,” Ella mused. “So we’ll just drop off your case, then head round to Georgie’s house, okay.”

“Yeah, I guess that-“ I said, before my eyes suddenly go wide. “Wait, Georgie’s house!?”

“Yes…” Ella says, confused by my sudden panic. “It has to be at someone’s house, and Georgie’s IS the largest.”

“And everyone’s off college because of the Easter holiday, right?” I ask as I take several deep breaths to try to calm myself down.

“Yes…” Ella says.

“Including Georgie’s brother?” I ask in a small, feeble voice, inwardly shuddering at the thought of the boy I'd kissed many, many times before.

“Oh my god!” Ella gasps as realisation dawns on her. “Ian, I am so, so sorry, I didn’t think, I should’ve thought, I-“

“It’s okay,” I whisper. “If I’m going to ‘confront the past’ I’ll need to talk to him sooner or later. He WAS a big part of ‘Ian’s early life…”

“If you’re sure,” Ella whispers. “I can always, you know, call Georgie, ask to rearrange, I’m sure she of all people would understand-“

“Honestly, it’s okay,” I say. “Seriously. To tell you the truth, there’s a part of me that wants to see him. Well, wants him to see me, anyway. How much I’ve done, how far I’ve come WITHOUT his help.”

“Atta- boy!” Ella cheers. “But only, ONLY if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” I say confidently. "And if the worst comes to the worst, I can always break out my boxing training, heh."

Needless to say, though, I wasn’t sure- far from it, in fact. After dropping my case at Ella’s grandmother’s house (and getting a look at the sofa that will be my bed for the next two nights) the two of us hop back into the taxi and head toward Georgie’s large, middle-class house. Every time I came here in the past, I was always filled with an overwhelming sense of dread. I dreaded having to spend time with what I saw as four airheads, having to talk about topics that I thoroughly hated, having to behave in a way that made me want to tear my skin off in frustration. The only good thing about this house was Ollie… No, not Ollie. The only good thing about this house was Ian. And it was thanks to Ollie’s selfish actions that Ian was taken away from me for so many months last year.

Now, as I approach the house, I’m once again filled with a sense of dread- but for the exact opposite reason. I know I’ll be spending time with the same women, but I won’t have to pretend to be a woman myself. Most of the talk will inevitably be about my transition, so I won’t have to feign interest when the girls talk about things like make-up or clothes- if anything, I’ll actually be expected to be uninterested in these topics. So no, it’s not the girls I’m dreading- well, it’s not them I’m dreading the most anyway. Ollie and I haven’t spoken face to face in over a year, not since the Valentine’s ‘date’ that saw me spend the night in hospital. I have a million things I want to say to him… But I’m dreading what, if anything, he has to say to me.

“O! M! G!” Georgie squeaks as she opens her front door and looks me in the face, before excitedly flapping her hands like a penguin having a seizure.

“…Hi, Georgie,” I say, not knowing how to react to Georgie’s ‘enthusiasm’ (other than with a feeling of utter dread, of course).

“OMG your accent too!” Georgie squeaks. “Is that, like, a boy’s accent?”

“It’s a Welsh boy’s accent,” I shrug.

“Can we come in?” Ella asks, leaning over my shoulder and making me feel short once again.

“Oh my god!” Georgie squeaks, before stepping aside and letting us into her house. “Come in! Come in! Girls! They’re here!” I smile and wave as I enter the living room and see two young women sat on Georgie’s sofa. Unsurprisingly, Brooke is one of the girls, but much to my shock, the other one isn’t Abbey-Gayle, but Maisie Holland- the captain of my school’s cheerleading squad (of which I was, of course a member).

“WOW,” Maisie breathes as I sit down next to Ella on Georgie’s other sofa, whilst our host goes to get us some drinks. “I mean- wow! You’d like, never be able to tell that you were ever a girl, Kay- Ahh, sorry, I mean ‘Ian’… That’s going to take a LOT of getting used to.”

“Oh. My. God!” Brooke enthuses, standing in front of me with her jaw agape. “You- you- you’re hot, Ian!”

“…I wouldn’t say ‘hot’,” I mumble as I try not to blush.

“Well I would,” Brooke says with an excited giggle. “God, you know- you know, I’ve actually seen you naked before? When we used to get changed together for ballet?”

“Don’t remind me,” I say with a snort of laughter.

“Seriously, Ian,” Brooke continues. “You must have every girl in Wales lined up at your door!”

“I wish,” I say with a snort of laughter as I start to fidget, feeling uncomfortable about being the centre of attention. Then again, I’m not being treated any differently than any other attractive young man unfortunate enough to catch the attention our little ‘group’…

When it was me, Brooke, Georgie, Ella and Abbey-Gayle, we’d regularly go out to cafes or smoothie bars, where any young man we deemed attractive- whether they were waiting staff or just another customer- would suddenly find themselves being oozed over by five attractive young women. One’s things for certain, though- in these circumstances, it’s much better to be oozed over than to be doing the oozing!

“Tell them about your boxing practice, Ian!” Ella says, making me chuckle nervously.

“Oh my god!” Maisie squeaks. “You’ve seriously gone from ballet and cheerleading to BOXING!?”

“I’ve… Kinda made some new friends in Cardiff,” I explain. “Boy- boys, a bunch of guys I hang out with. Usually on Tuesdays they go swimming, obviously I can’t really do that yet ‘cause I can’t go topless in the pool and I’m not wearing a bikini top or a one-piece swimsuit, so, umm, one of them, their dad is a boxing coach and he’s been training me whilst they go swimming.”

“That is SO cool,” Maisie whispers. “Have you, you know, been in any fights yet?”

“No, HELL no,” I giggle. “Just a way to, you know, work out a little frustration…”

“I bet,” Brooke says with a laugh. “You know… We HAVE missed you. Well, we’ve missed Kayleigh-Ann, anyway. Umm, no offence…”

“None taken,” I say with a smile. “I think I know what you mean. It’s not ‘Ian’ or ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ you’ve missed, it’s just, you know, me? Or does that make me sound a bit egotistical?”

“Just a little,” Maisie teases, sticking her tongue out at me. “Though with you gone, I did take your ‘spot’…”

“Maisie is COOL,” Brooke says, making the other girl blush.

“SUPER cool!” Georgie giggles as she returns from the kitchen with a tray of soft drinks. “Like, OMG, Kay- Kay-“

“Ian,” I say, trying to stifle a sigh.

“Ian!” Georgie giggles. “Maisie is just, like, SO cool!”

“Aww,” Maisie coos, clearly happy that the centre of attention has shifted from me to her- though just like when we were at school, I have no problem with Maisie hogging the limelight.

“Why didn’t you tell us about her earlier, Kayleigh-Ann?” Georgie asks, making me bristle. “We could, like, have been, you know, six girls, or something like that?”

“HIS name isn’t Kayleigh-Ann,” Ella says in a soft, but firm voice. “And he is NOT a girl.” My heart begins to flutter as I hear the words I’ve said to myself on so many occasions… Though this is the first time I’ve heard them coming from someone else’s mouth, and the feeling that generates inside my chest is simply indescribable.

“OMG I am so sorry!” Georgie squeaks, flapping her hands in a state of near-panic. “Oh my god oh my god oh my god-“

“It’s fine,” I say, trying my best to sound sympathetic. “I know you didn’t do it deliberately.”

“Oh my god oh my god,” Georgie squeaks, taking several deep breaths to calm herself down.

“Georgie, try to calm down!” Brooke laughs. “You’re not the first person to make this mistake, is she, Ian?”

“Umm, nope,” I say as I muse on how much more mature Brooke seems to be since I last saw her. Georgie, of course, doesn’t seem to have matured at all, as proved when she takes the opportunity to start babbling on about another time she ‘embarrassed’ herself by saying the wrong thing, followed by another, and another… And as this is Georgie we’re talking about, she probably has enough anecdotes to fill the rest of the afternoon.

Part of me feels slightly aggrieved that the topic of my transition is now firmly off the table- the girls having obviously learned all they want to about it- though as before, I am on the whole happy to no longer be in the limelight. I even start to relax a little as I- like any typical boy- pretend to listen to what the girls are talking about, though my relaxation comes to an abrupt end when Georgie’s living room door opens and I find myself staring straight into the bespectacled eyes of the boy who was ‘Ian’s only friend for a very long time.

“Ollie,” I whisper despite myself as the colour drains from the young man’s face. “Umm… Hi…”

“Eww, get lost, NERD!” Georgie spits at her older brother. “This is GIRL TALK only!” I bite my lip as Georgie once again forgets that not everyone sat on her sofa is female- though as before, I’m sure that her slip-up is down to pure ignorance, rather than any malice on her part.

“Umm… Georgie…” Brooke mumbles, breaking the awkward silence that has fallen over the room, and despite myself, I roll my eyes as Georgie gasps and has another near-panic attack.

“OMG OMG I’m so sorry!” Georgie squeaks.

“It’s fine,” I say, trying (and failing) to sound sympathetic. “Umm… Hi, Ollie.”

“Hi… Ian,” Ollie replies. “I, um, thought you lived in Cardiff now?”

“I do,” I say. “I’m just back for a couple of days to, um, catch up…”

“I think we’d better give the BOYS some space!” Ella says, and before I can protest, she, Brooke, Georgie and Maisie leave the room, leaving me sat staring nervously at my ‘ex-boyfriend’.

“So, umm, hi,” I mumble.

“Hi,” Ollie mumbles, sitting down opposite me. “So, umm, you’ve- you’re, umm, really, you know-“

“Transitioning?” I interrupt. “Yep. Started taking testosterone treatments this September just gone.”

“Oh, okay,” Ollie mumbles.

“Turns out you weren’t my best chance of ever becoming Ian,” I say, barely disguising the anger in my voice. “Turns out that that was me all along.”

“Yeah,” Ollie grimaces. “Ian, I- I’m sorry, okay? Sorry for the way I acted…”

“That was over a year ago,” I say. “Water under the bridge. Everything turned out alright in the end.”

“You know,” Ollie sighs, “I- I thought I loved you there. I could have loved you.”

“No,” I say firmly. “You thought you loved Kayleigh-Ann. And that person never existed.”

“I realise that now,” Ollie sighs.

“So…” I say hesitantly. “You- are you, you know, seeing anyone?”

“Umm, nope,” Ollie says. “Haven’t seen anyone since we, umm, you know…”

“…Me either,” I mumble.

“Skinny nerds who wear glasses don’t really attract girls,” Ollie says with a snort of laughter.

“Try being a transsexual nerd,” I snort. “Not sure which is less of a turn-off to girls, heh.”

“So, um, you’re definitely, you know…” Ollie mumbles.

“Heterosexual?” I ask. “Yes. I tried not to think about sex, but the testosterone kinda kicks your sex drive into, well, sex OVERdrive. Problem is, I find actually hanging out with girls as irritating as I did back when I was Kayleigh-Ann, and I doubt any girls would enjoy spending an evening playing videogames or board games…”

“Meh, I still live in hope,” Ollie shrugs. “So, umm, you- you got a console of your own now?”

“Got a PS4 with Christmas and birthday money,” I say. “Got a regular Overwatch night with my friends in Cardiff.”

“Cool,” Ollie mumbles. “So, umm, you- you want to, you know, get some gaming in now? Or would you rather hang out with Georgie and-“

“Sounds great,” I say with a grin, before following Ollie up to his room.

As I step into the small, cramped room, I’m filled with a wave of nostalgia- despite my protests of independence, it was in here that ‘Ian’ was truly born. This, however, will be the first time I will have stepped into (and, of course, left) this room in ‘boy mode’. The nostalgia is so great that I almost have to remind myself that for the last several months, ‘boy mode’ is the only ‘mode’ I have anymore.

Fortunately, the gaming session helps to settle any remaining stress that I might have, just like it did in the old days. By the time we call it a day, I even have a smile on my face, and as Ollie leads me back downstairs, I turn to face the bespectacled young man.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“S’okay,” Ollie shrugs. “Always better to play with someone else than by your-“

“I mean, for everything,” I sigh. “You did give ‘Ian’ the jumpstart he needed. And despite what happened last February, everything did turn out for the best. In the end.”

“…You’re welcome,” Ollie mumbles, clearly still ashamed of his actions last Valentine’s Day.

“And yes, I do forgive you for that,” I sigh, extending my hand. “Friends?”

“Friends,” Ollie says with a tired chuckle, shaking my hand before leading me into the living room where the other girls- including Abbey-Gayle, who must have arrived whilst I was gaming- are sat gossiping.

“Typical BOY,” Ella teases. “Would rather play HIS silly little games than spend time with five gorgeous women…”

“…Sorry,” I mumble, barely suppressing a giggle. “Umm, hi, Abbey-Gayle.”

“Hey, Ian!” the dark-skinned girl says, jumping out of her seat to greet me with a tight hug. “God, the girls weren’t kidding, you look HAWT!”

“Thanks,” I laugh nervously as Abbey-Gayle gives my bicep a tight squeeze.

“Mmm,” Abbey-Gayle giggles. “If I weren’t going out with the son of a millionaire, I might just be tempted, hehe!”

“Thanks,” I laugh again. “Umm, congratulations, I, um, I mean for tomorrow. And your promotion…”

“Thanks!” Abbey-Gayle squeaks excitedly as she finally lets me sit down next to Ella, who briefly startles me by wrapping an arm around my slim waist. “I take it you’re coming tomorrow night, yeah? My first proper ‘Angel party’…”

“Sure,” I say. “Obviously I won’t be, you know, in costume…”

“Eww,” Abbey-Gayle spits with a giggle. “Who wants to see a BOY dressed as a bunny anyway?”

“I dunno,” I say. “There’ll be some people who say that I’ll always be a girl, no matter what I wear…”

“Well those people are thick, ain’t they?” Abbey-Gayle snorts. “It don’t matter what you got between your legs, you wanna be a girl, you should be a girl, you wanna be a boy, you should be a boy, yeah?”

“Yeah!” The other girls cheer, bringing a warm feeling to my chest.

“Thanks, thank you all,” I laugh.

“Just wish we’ known about Ian ‘bit earlier,” Abbey-Gayle giggles. “Could all be Angels now!”

“Yeah… Don’t think I fit the whole ‘Angel mould’,” I say, making Abbey-Gayle roar with laughter.

“You don’t got to be a girl to be an Angel!” The Jamaican girl laughs. “There’ll be boys there. Reckon Stuart especially will wanna talk to you, heh!”

“Yeah, I kinda want to talk to him too,” I say with a grin.

“Aww,” Abbey-Gayle says with a mock pout. “Here I was thinking that you came to see me…”

“I’m here to see everyone,” I say with a chuckle. “I know I left London in kind of a rush. And then I kinda lied to everyone for months…”

“THAT we can forgive, now we know why,” Brooke says, making me smile. “And like Abbey-Gayle says, you don’t need to be a girl to be an Angel, you don’t need to be a girl to be our friend either!”

“Thanks,” I say with a wide grin.

“We’re all heading out in a bit,” Abbey-Gayle announces. “Heading out to dinner, my treat. You can come if you want, Ian, the rest of us are bringing our boyfriends along.”

“Those of us who have boyfriends, anyway,” Ella sighs in an overdramatic voice, before letting out a playful giggle.

“You two will just have to go together, then!” Abbey-Gayle teases as she points to Ella and myself. “Though you ain’t wearing a football shirt to the restaurant, dress up a bit, yeah?”

“Yes, ma’am!” I retort, making Abbey-Gayle giggle. “What time’s your reservation?”

“Duh,” Abbey-Gayle snorts. “I’m an Angel now. Don’t need no reservation!”

“Even for, what, ten of us?” I ask.

“Trust me, you’ll see,” Brooke giggles. “So what time we meeting up, seven?”

“Yeah, seven works for me,” Abbey-Gayle says. “Gives us enough time to get ready.”

“Not that that will take me more than ten minutes,” I say, sitting back with a smug grin that only gets wider when Ella hits me in the face with one of the sofa’s cushions.

“I’ve got the Angelmobile outside so I’ll give yous all a lift home,” Abbey-Gayle says, and just as soon as I’d returned to the living room, I’m ushered out again.

After a quick taxi ride (during which I try not to feel embarrassed at being sat in the back of a bubblegum pink car), I find myself sat in Ella’s bedroom, trying not to stare too intently as the tall girl strips down to her underwear before sitting at her dressing table and enhancing her make-up.

“Umm… You don’t fancy any privacy, then?” I ask.

“You heard what Brooke said,” Ella retorts. “It’s nothing you’ve not seen before.”

“If you insist,” I shrug. “I see Abbey-Gayle’s as bossy as ever…”

“Eh,” Ella shrugs. “She gets us into the best clubs and the best restaurants, she can be as bossy as she wants.”

“So she hasn’t forgotten about you after all, then?” I ask. “Since becoming an Angel?”

“She just took some time to settle in with the new group, that’s all,” Ella says. Yes, of course she did, I think to myself. It wasn’t the case that she suddenly became a small fish in a big pond and missed being the boss…

“Fair enough,” I say.

“You disappeared for a LONG time with Ollie,” Ella says. “Kinda got worried there for a second, but then I remembered that if you and Ollie DID get into a fight…”

“No, no fighting,” I say. “No- well, none of the ‘opposite of fighting’ either. Just, well… What’s the word for it…?”

“Closure?” Ella asks.

“That’s as good a word as any,” I say. “I feel ‘more Ian’ now than I’ve ever done. Just wish I could get the same closure with my parents, or my grandmother…”

“They’ll soon be DESPERATE to accept you as their son, I guarantee it,” Ella says confidently.

“Mum only ever saw me as her possession and dad barely knew I existed,” I snort. “I’m not holding my breath.”

“Well, lucky that you’ve got your grandmother, isn’t it?” Ella giggles as she sprays on some perfume and reaches into her wardrobe for an outfit. “Not to mention loads of awesome friends, both here and in Wales!”

“True,” I say, smiling as Ella picks out a short, pleated minidress with matching strappy stilettos. After changing into her outfit, Ella does a playful twirl for me, showing off her model training (not to mention her model’s body).

“Wow,” I say, letting out a small giggle as Ella laughs along with me. “Even if you are now about a foot taller than me. Okay, my turn.”

“Go right ahead,” Ella says, staring at me with a devilish look in her eye. “Like I said, nothing I haven’t seen before…”

“Want to bet?” I ask, lifting my trouser leg to show Ella the thin, wiry hair growing on my shin.

“…FINE then,” Ella overdramatically sighs, before giggling and leaving me alone in her room. “And no looking through my drawers!”

“Like there’s anything in there I want to see anyway!” I retort, before swapping my jeans, trainers and football shirt for a pair of smart black trousers, a designer long-sleeved shirt and a pair of smart brown lace-up shoes. “Ready!”

“That was, like, five minutes,” Ella scoffs as she opens her door and sees me all dressed up and ready to go. “Ugh, BOY!”

“I’m taking that as a compliment,” I say with a grin as I follow Ella down to our waiting taxi, which whisks us toward the restaurant where the rest of our friends (and their boyfriends) are waiting.

It’s hardly the first time I’ll have been anywhere with ‘the boyfriends’- and they’ve all obviously been told ahead of time about my ‘change’- but it is weird to find myself included in their group rather than the girls’, especially after this morning. I actually find myself unconsciously gravitating toward where the girls are gathered by the ladies’ toilet, before Ella unceremoniously shoves me toward where the boys are sat at the bar.

“Alright, mate?” Reuben- Abbey-Gayle’s boyfriend- asks. “What d’you want?”

“Alright,” I reply. “There’s no way I’m not going to get ID’d so I’d better get a Coke, I suppose.”

“Not got your ID with you?” Andrew (Brooke’s boyfriend) asks.

“Not eighteen yet,” I reply, earning sniggers of laughter from the other boys.

“Umm…” Reuben asks, “don’t answer this if you don’t want to, but does- does your ID-“

“It’d be my student ID that I’d use,” I say. “And yes, it does say ‘gender: M’ on it.”

“It’s a bit weird, though,” Marley- Georgie’s boyfriend- says, making me wince and pray that he has at least slightly more tact than his girlfriend. “I mean, not you personally, there’s nothing wrong with being trans, like, but- like- the last time I saw you, you were, like, wearing a bikini on a beach. Now you’re dressed just like us.”

“Believe me, I’d rather have been dressed like this on that beach,” I say, making the other boys laugh.

“I bet,” Reuben laughs, leading to an awkward silence that’s only exacerbated by the realisation that all the other boys tower over me- especially the 6’ 2” Reuben and the 6’ 3” Marley. “So, umm… You- you got a team?”

“Yep,” I say with a smug grin that makes Marley groan.

“Don’t tell me,” the tall, blond boy says, “the team that can lose the last three letters of their name?”

“If by that you mean ‘the team that’s qualified for the champions league the last nineteen seasons in a row, then yes,” I retort, grinning at the good-natured boos this earns me.

“The team that’s never even won the fucking Champions League,” Reuben snorts.

“If it helps,” I say, “I also support the team that DIDN’T lose to Iceland in the Euros last year…"

“Sheep shagger!” Maisie’s boyfriend- whose name escapes me for now- yells, making everyone laugh- myself included.

Good-natured teasing like this may be one of the tougher aspects of being a boy, but at least it’s never anything personal, and I’m expected to (and can) give as good as I get- and as patriotic as I am, I’d rather be teased for being Welsh than for being trans. Before I can open my mouth to respond, though, a loud cough attracts the attention of the five of us, and we look up to see the five girls stood staring at us, arms folded and stern expressions on their faces.

“…Coming,” Reuben mumbles on behalf of us five boys, which makes the girls all giggle as they find their respective boyfriends (Ella grabbing my hand in the absence of an actual boyfriend) and lead us to our table.

Naturally, during the meal itself (which Abbey-Gayle insists on paying for- maybe Ella was right about her after all), the girls dominate the conversation, reducing us boys to the status of barely-interested onlookers. It’s almost a relief when the meal finally ends, not least because it’s almost 9:30pm and I am utterly exhausted after my long day. Before we go, however, Abbey-Gayle insists on crowding all of us around her for a selfie.

“Say hi to a hundred and twenty thousand Instagram followers, girls and guys!” The Jamaican girl laughs as she takes the picture, before arranging taxis for all of us back to our respective homes.

Once we’re back in Ella’s bedroom, I let out a sigh of relief as I remove my stiff shoes and thick socks, wiggling my toes to try to shake off some of the soreness.

“Oh- seriously?” Ella protests as she removes her shoes and waves their heels in my face. “YOUR feet hurt?”

“Seriously?” I retort. “YOU needed heels that high?”

“Duh- yes I did?” Ella snorts, before giggling and giving me a hug. As Ella is over eighteen, obviously she drank wine with the meal, and judging by her breath, she may have drank a little TOO much… “Okay,” the Australian girl concedes. “Maybe I didn’t. But I DID look hot tonight! …Right, Ian?”

“Yes, yes you did,” I say, making Ella giggle again.

“You know,” the tall, blonde girl laughs, “The night IS still young, and you’re not in London long…”

“I’m also still young,” I say, making Ella sigh sadly. “I assume you want us to hit a club, right?”

“Yeah,” Ella sighs. “But it’s okay. I’d want US to hit a club, not just me alone whilst you, I dunno, crash on the sofa watching Netflix or something.”

“I have got my iPad with me,” I shrug, making Ella giggle.

“We’re going to have a REALLY late night tomorrow, anyway,” Ella laughs, before giving me another hug. “Get some sleep, BOY. You’ll need it for tomorrow!”

“Yes, ma’am!” I laugh, gingerly returning Ella’s hug before heading into her bathroom and changing into a plain pair of shorts and a t-shirt (and letting out a loud sigh of relief as I remove the bandage from around my chest). Once I’m changed, I head down to Ella’s living room, where I climb under the thick sheets that have been draped over the sofa. Naturally, following the long day I’ve had, I’m soon asleep, though before I nod off, I check out the photo Abbey-Gayle put on Instagram. Unsurprisingly, it already has thousands of likes, though I have an additional reason to like it- the fact that there are five girls and five boys in the picture, and it couldn’t be more obvious which category I fall into.

Despite Ella’s sofa not being as comfortable as my bed in Cardiff, I have a smile on my face as I wake up the following morning, before letting out a small yelp of surprise when I look over and see an elderly woman staring at me with a smile on her face.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” the old woman- who, despite her English accent, must be Ella’s grandmother- says. “I’m sorry if I woke you, Ian.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” I mumble. No chance of getting back to sleep now, I think to myself. “Umm, thank you for letting me stay over…”

“You’re very welcome,” Ella’s grandmother says. “You’re certainly a lot more polite than the last few boys Ella’s brought home!”

“Umm… Yeah,” I mumble as I try to shake the tiredness out of my head. “Umm, you do- you do know-“

“Yes, I know,” Ella’s grandmother laughs. “We HAVE met before, Ian. You- or rather, the ‘old you’- have been here before, remember?”

“Ah- yeah, sorry,” I grimace. “It’s still kinda early…”

“It’s almost 9:30am!” Ella’s grandmother laughs. “Though for a teenager, that IS early… Don’t expect to see my granddaughter before eleven!”

“Heh,” I chuckle in response to the old woman’s joke.

“Though she’ll be up in plenty of time for your big party tonight,” Ella’s grandmother continues. “She’s been talking about it for weeks, even if she WILL be showing far too much skin in that ridiculous costume of hers. Sometimes I wish SHE’d be a bit more ‘boyish’. Still, you’re only eighteen once, and it not like she ever does anything indecent, either for work or for fun. And she does earn good money from her work, so am I to complain but an old prude?”

“Trust me, you are NOT an old prude,” I laugh as I remember the attitudes of my own paternal grandmother. “I wouldn’t be crashed here on your sofa if you were.”

“That’s very kind of you to say, Ian,” Ella’s grandmother says with a smile, which only widens when we hear a bump come from directly overhead. “Oh, I think she’s woken up… I’d better get some breakfast ready.”

“You- you don’t have to go to any trouble, not for me,” I say.

“Nonsense,” Ella’s grandmother says. “You’re my guest, and that means I have to feed you. How does bacon and eggs sound?”

“Sounds delicious,” I say with a grin as the old woman rises from her chair and heads to the kitchen.

Before long, the house is filled with the smell of frying food, which makes my mouth water even now, eight months after abandoning my parents’ organic, vegan ‘food plan’. It’s telling that since I started eating proper food, I haven’t had to take the iron and vitamin supplements I existed on during my early teenage years. Naturally, the smell attracts Ella downstairs, though the frown on her face hints that she maybe drank a bit more than she should have last night…

“Good morning!” My elderly host beams in a loud, cheerful voice that makes her granddaughter moan in pain. “I trust you had fun last night?”

“More fun than I’m having this morning,” Ella moans as she sips her sweet, black coffee. “You sleep well, Ian?”

“Yeah, fine, thanks,” I reply. “What we got planned for today? You working?”

“Nope,” Ella replies, a grin spreading across her face. “I’m yours for the whole day! Well, apart from tonight, anyway, hehe!”

“Will we be seeing the birthday girl before the party?” I ask.

“Think she’s out with her family all day,” Ella replies.

“…Fancy going somewhere for lunch, then?” I ask. “It can be my treat, my way of saying ‘thanks’ for putting me up.”

“It’s no burden to put you up!” Ella laughs. “Been nice to have a guest.”

“It has,” Ella’s grandmother concurs with a smile.

“And besides,” Ella says, “I’m the ‘rich model’ making money, you’re just a poor student. No offence, of course, but you know what I mean…”

“I can at least buy you a coffee, surely?” I ask, making Ella and her grandmother both smile.

“…Deal,” Ella says. “As long as it’s a strong coffee!”

“Very kind of you, Ian,” Ella’s grandmother says. “Much more generous than some young men who have sat at this table… I can’t help but blush as the elderly woman compliments me, but it soon dawns on me that she did actually just imply that she would rather her granddaughter dated a transgendered guy than some of the boys she’s gone out with in the past. Why can’t my whole family be this cool?

Of course, the coffee trip goes smoothly- both Ella and her grandmother talk openly about their lives, about Ella’s family in Australia, her mum, her dad and her two older brothers, and her aunts and uncles in the UK. Eventually, though, the time comes for us to return back to Ella’s home, and as she leads me up to her room to get changed for the party, she’s almost giddy with excitement.

“Eeeee!” Ella squeaks as she shuts the door behind us and immediately strips off the top, tights and shorts she wore to the café, once again not having a problem with parading around in her underwear in front of me. “This is going to be SO cool!”

“GIRL,” I tease as Ella parks herself in front of her dresser and begins enhancing her make-up to extreme levels, with thick eyeshadow and bright red lipstick.

“BOY!” Ella retorts. “Come on, aren’t you just a little excited? It’s, like, our first ever proper Angel party!”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m looking forward to it,” I say. “But it’s just, you know, another party?”

“With celebrities there,” Ella says.

“One of whom is a close friend of ours who we hung out with last night,” I retort.

“Not while wearing this, we didn’t!” Ella giggles as she retrieves a shiny, strapless satin leotard from her wardrobe, playfully holding it against her body. “Now for this one, you WILL need to get out!”

“Fair enough,” I say, leaving the room to allow Ella to get changed in peace.

“Of course, if you’re jealous that I get to wear this costume and you don’t…” Ella shouts through her door.

“’Jealous’ isn’t the word I’m thinking of,” I reply, making Ella laugh. “The only reason I’d ever wear ANYTHING like that would be to give my grandmother a heart attack. The, um, evil grandmother, not the one I live with.”

“I guessed,” Ella says. “Reckon it’d finish off your mum and dad too?”

“Are you kidding?” I snort. “If mum knew I was going to this party she’d probably insist I go there wearing even LESS than that to try to get myself noticed.”

“Maybe she’d just be excited that you’re going at all,” Ella says. “I know how much she, you know, ‘pushed’ you, back when you, you know, lived in London…”

“’Pushed’ is putting it mildly,” I snort. “Part of the reason I’m not looking forward to this as much as you… It’s like, you know, I’m saying that she’s right? Does that make any sense?”

“I guess,” Ella muses. “But look at it this way- you don’t do ballet anymore. You don’t take acting classes, you don’t do any music classes anymore, you don’t do anything that would make you even close to famous. You’re only going to this party ‘cause a friend invited you, you’re not there to, you know, ‘network’.”

“Well- I suppose,” I mumble.

“And you’ll make everyone back home jealous,” Ella continues. No, I think to myself, there’s only one thing that’ll make Rob, Neil and Lee jealous, and THAT’s unlikely to happen.

“Only the girls at college,” I retort, making Ella giggle.

“Maybe they’ll start paying attention to the short, transsexual nerd,” Ella says, before emerging from her bedroom in her costume- the sight of which causes my jaw to drop.

“…I think you’ll be getting more attention than me tonight!” I laugh, earning a giggle and a hug from Ella as she takes off her ear-enhanced headband and pulls on long coat to cover herself up.

“You SURE you don’t want a costume like this?” Ella asks.

“Positive,” I reply, emerging from Ella’s room less than two minutes later in the smart shoes and trousers I wore yesterday, along with a new, short-sleeved designer shirt that shows off my fledgling muscles.

“Niiiice,” Ella giggles as she drinks in the sight of me in my shirt. “Don’t be so sure that I’ll be the one getting all the attention, hehe! There WILL be more girls than boys there tonight…”

“I guess,” I shrug as we head down to our waiting taxi.

“Aww,” Ella sighs. “Don’t guess, know! Take it from a girl- confidence is the most attractive quality a guy can have. And you’ve got a lot to be confident about, Ian. So you might as well look forward to the party, because trust me, you WILL have fun if you want to. Everyone there will be friendly and welcoming, and no one’s going to judge you because of your, well, ‘you know what’. They’d have to be a huge hypocrite if they did, seeing as there’ll be at least two, maybe three people there dressed like me who were born with dangly bits between their legs, and at least one other person dressed like you who was born with lady parts. Believe me when I say you are about to enter probably the safest safe space in the UK when it comes to trans people.”

“Oh, I know that,” I reply. “For once I’m NOT afraid of being ‘found out’, heh.”

“Then what, exactly, are you afraid of?” Ella asks me.

“…That I might enjoy it, maybe?” I shrug. “That I won’t fit in. That I WILL fit in. God, I don’t know! I- ugh. Sorry for snapping.”

“S’okay,” Ella mumbles, clearly taken aback by my outburst.

“I have this nice little comfort zone in Cardiff,” I say. “No offence, but there’s a bit of me that really wishes he didn’t accept your invitation.”

“Just as long as most of you IS pleased to be here,” Ella says with a snort of laughter. “Just. Relax. You’re going to this party to relax, have fun and make friends who WILL be willing and able to help you. I promise I’ll find Stuart- the other transman who’ll be there- as soon as we arrive, and I’ll introduce you to him. You won’t be expected to ‘perform’ or anything, just relax and be yourself. Us bunnies be the ones doing the ‘performing’!”

“Heh,” I nervously reply as the taxi approaches a large, looming mansion-like house, a house whose image I had practically forced down my throat during my teenage years- the house of Charlotte Hutchinson, also known as ‘the daughter my mother REALLY wanted’. If my mum knew I was coming here tonight…

As I step out of the taxi, I mentally resolve that no matter what, my mum must NEVER know I was ever here. If she can’t love me for who I am, then I’m not going to let her love me for whatever ‘fame’ I might gain from being here- which, hopefully, will be none.

Ella, however, seems determined to ‘put herself out there’ as much as possible, taking off her coat the second she steps through the front door and posing for the assembled photographers whilst I try to hang back out of view.

“Seriously?” I whisper to the Australian girl. “Paparazzi at a private birthday party?”

“They’re probably just Joshua’s photographers,” Ella replies, referring to the owner of the talent agency she’s signed to. “Either way, I’ve got to let everyone see my face…” I try to smile as Ella poses in her scandalously tight costume, though the second the photographers are done with her, we’re greeted by another bunny in a tight royal blue-coloured costume, whose right hip bears a rosette with the name ‘Jamie’ written on it.

“Hi!” Jamie giggles, giving Ella a hug before turning and greeting me with a polite handshake. “And you must be MISTER Ian Freeman, right?”

“Yep!” I nervously laugh. “And obviously, I know that you are MISS Jamie-Lee Burke!”

“Only for the next month,” Jamie giggles, holding up the diamond ring on her left hand. “Then I get to be MRS Jamie-Lee Milton, hehe!”

“Heh, congratulations,” I chuckle in a quiet, timid voice.

“Speaking of,” Jamie teases, “Ella here has told me all about you, about your, well, ‘history’… Something I can easily relate to, heh.”

“I know,” I say quietly, earning a sympathetic smile from the attractive young woman. It’s impossible to believe that just over six years ago, this goddess was a shrimpy, unemployed young man…

“I know someone who can relate to your specific ‘history’ a bit more than I can, though,” Jamie says, taking my hand and leading me into the party, which is already extremely busy with almost two dozen bunnies milling around, along with other young men and women in expensive, designer clothing. Even though my clothes aren’t exactly cheap, I still can’t help but feel completely out of place in this crowd.

I start to feel slightly calmer, however, when Jamie leads me toward a corner of the L-shaped room where a group of about half a dozen young men are stood, chatting privately and drinking beer. A loud cough from Jamie immediately brings them all to attention, and I once again feel myself shrink into my clothes as their eyes all turn toward me.

“MISTER Stuart Milton,” Jamie says with a smug grin, “meet MISTER Ian Freeman!”

“Umm, hi,” I mumble as one of the men, a shorter guy (the same height as me) with cropped brown hair who looks like he’s in his late twenties, steps forward and gives me a firm handshake.

“Hi, nice to meet you,” Stuart replies in a deep, middle-class accent.

“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Jamie says. “But- and this goes for all you BOYS- you are NOT spending this whole party hidden away in a corner, you ARE going to mingle and you ARE going to have fun. Understood?”

“Yes, Jamie,” all the men- myself included- mumble.

“The ‘fun’ part goes especially for you, Ian,” Jamie says with a warm smile, before leaving us in our corner.

“We’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” one of the other guys- a tall, dark-skinned man- says as Stuart and I sit down in a nearby sofa.

“…So, um, hi,” Stuart says, obviously as nervous as I am.

“Hi,” I mumble in response.

“Do- do you, umm, want to get a drink?” Stuart asks.

“I’m only seventeen,” I mumble in response. “Umm… So, umm, you knew- you knew I was-“

“Yeah, Jamie told me, I think Ella told her,” Stuart says. “You can’t tell, you know.”

“…I meant ‘you knew I was coming’,” I say, making the older man snort with laughter.

“…Yeah, that too,” Stuart chuckles. “So, umm, how long have- have you, you know?”

”Eight months,” I reply. “You?”

“Eleven years,” Stuart says with a proud grin. “All ‘done’ too, as far as operations go anyway.”

“Not looking forward to THAT,” I laugh. “Though it’s better than, you know, constantly ‘bandaging’.”

“Ugh, definitely,” Stuart snorts. “I mean yes, it DOES hurt to begin with, and it leaves scars, but- but it’s, you know…”

“A small price to pay to go swimming with your friends without wearing a bikini top or a girl’s swimsuit?” I ask, grinning as Stuart smiles and nods.

“I know you probably came here hoping for some ‘divine insight’ or something,” Stuart says. “Truth be told, I’ve always been a bit jealous of the way Jamie has all her ‘protégés’. See that girl in the lilac coloured costume?”

“Yes…” I say as I gaze as the lilac-coloured bunny, who’s dancing with a group of other girls.

“She’s also trans,” Stuart explains. “Had her SRS last year when she was nineteen, and Jamie was pretty much on call 24/7 to offer any help, even if it was just a few words of encouragement.”

“Words that would naturally come easier to girls than to boys,” I say.

“EXACTLY,” Stuart says. “And of course, it’s not like I can drop everything and rush off to Wales if you have any issues, but if you have any questions about, you know, the ‘mechanics’ of transitioning, then just drop me a line anytime, I won’t mind.”

“Thanks,” I say, opening my mouth to ask another question before being interrupted by a familiar face looming over us.

“Oh my god,” the tall, blonde woman- who, oddly, isn’t wearing a bunny costume- says. “I’d heard you’d come back, MISTER ‘Artist formerly known as Kayleigh-Ann Walker’!”

“…Hi, Miss Fullerton,” I nervously say to my former ballet teacher.

“Ugh, you’re not my student anymore, you CAN call me Krystie!” The tall woman giggles as she sits down, wedging herself between me and Stuart despite the older man’s objections. “Now I know why you left in such a hurry, heh.”

“Yeah… Sorry about that,” I grimace.

“Oh, believe me, you have NOTHING to apologise for!” Krystie chuckles. “If I’d known then… Ka- sorry, IAN, I would NEVER have pushed you the way I did. I am truly, truly sorry.”

“No, no, it’s my fault for not speaking up earlier,” I sigh. “Sorry if it made things hard, what with your production last December…”

“Stop. Apologising!” Krystie orders me with a chuckle. “Besides, it all went well. Kinda ironic really, Laura White actually got the role I’d lined you up for. And take this however you want, but she is a MUCH better ballerina than you ever were.”

“…Think I’ll take that as a compliment,” I say, earning laughs from both Krystie and Stuart. “Umm, I understand congratulations, like, for you?”

“Thanks!” Krystie giggles as she rubs her slightly enlarged belly. “Four and a half down, four and a half to go... Not that this would interest you two, I guess.”

“…Some sacrifices are worth it,” Stuart shrugs. “And we’re still looking at adoption agencies.”

“…I’m seventeen, that’s why I’m not interested,” I say, earning more laughs from my new friends. “That, and I don’t want to be the kind of parent my parents were to me.”

“Aww,” Krystie sighs, giving my back a gentle rub. “I don’t mean to be, you know, insulting, but… I- I kinda, um, I really had a problem with the way your mother. No offence.”

“None taken,” I snort. “Trust me, your ‘problem’ with her can’t be as big as mine. That’s why I don’t live in London anymore… Part of why I very nearly didn’t come to this party.”

“Well I’m glad you did come,” Krystie says with a giggle. “If just so there’s someone else here who can’t drink alcohol, hehe! I guess it’s true what they say… Some girls are just born to be boys!”

“I always thought so,” Stuart says, laughing as Krystie gives him a playful shove.

“I hope this one’s offered up some words of advice,” Krystie laughs. “Words of ‘wisdom’ might be stretching it a bit, though!”

“I sent him a Facebook friend request before the party,” Stuart says. “I’m not exactly a ‘mentor-type’ person, I realise that now, but any way I can help, just let me know.”

“It won’t be the only friend request you get today,” Krystie says with a confident grin. “You might have some, well, ‘issues’ with your quote-unquote real family, Ian, but you’ve always got a surrogate family with us.”

“Literally,” Stuart says, “seeing as my sister’s engaged to her brother.”

“Hush, you,” Krystie orders Stuart, who laughs and mimes zipping his mouth shut. I open my mouth to respond, before a loud cough prevents me from talking. As one, the three of us on the sofa look up to see the royal blue bunny who welcomed us earlier stood with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

“…What did I say about ‘having fun’?” Jamie asks.

“Yes, ma’am,” Stuart mumbles as he and I get up off the sofa, allowing Krystie to stretch out her body. “Come on Ian, I’ll get you a Coke.”

“Thanks,” I say with a grin as Jamie giggles behind our backs, before sitting down next to Krystie and chatting- no doubt about the two of us.

“You got a girlfriend?” Stuart asks. “Back in Cardiff, I mean.”

“Umm, no,” I say. “I’m kinda- kinda a nerd…”

“Meh, nothing wrong with nerds,” Stuart shrugs. “I mean, I’ve never played Warhammer or anything, but I don’t, like, look down on people who do. If there’s one lesson we both know, it’s never to judge people for the way they live their lives.”

“Definitely,” I laugh.

“And you can always get a few selfies with some of the Angels to take back to Cardiff,” Stuart shrugs. “That’ll get you some female interest!” I laugh as Stuart hands me my drink, before following Jamie’s orders and mingling with the crowd, chatting with some of the people present and dancing with some of the girls. More often than not, though, I find myself chatting with Stuart or some of his other friends (all of whom fully accept me as ‘one of the boys’) or Reuben and his friends, all of whom are here, or dancing with Ella, who’s clearly having the time of her life at this party.

However, all good things must come to an end, so just after 2am, Ella- who, despite her earlier hangover, has had a LOT to drink- and I climb into the back of a taxi that quickly whisks us back to her home. Despite stumbling a little in her heels, Ella leads me up to her bedroom, where she lets out a long (but quiet, so as not to wake her grandmother) sigh as she collapses on her bed, still wearing her tight costume.

“That was AWESOME,” Ella giggles.

“Lived up to expectations, then?” I ask.

“Everything I dreamed and more,” Ella sighed. “Though I am going to be SO glad to get out of this damned costume, hehe!”

“I’ll try not to look TOO smug,” I say, giggling as Ella sticks her tongue out at me.

“Soo…” Ella teases. “Did you have fun, Ian? Make new friends, maybe gain a ‘mentor’ or a ‘big brother’?”

“Meh, I got a handful of friend requests,” I shrug. “Not that they’ll be THAT close, I mean, tomorrow morning I’ll be on my way back to Cardiff, after all.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda way Facebook was invented, so you can keep in touch whenever and wherever,” Ella giggles. “I chat with my brothers most day and they live in Australia, for Christ’s sake!”

“Yeah, I guess,” I say. “It’s just- believe it or not, I actually had more fun this weekend just hanging out with you, rather than going to all these parties, hanging out with the other girls or even the other boys.”

“Aww, that is so sweet,” Ella says, sitting up and looking me in the eye. “I’ve really had fun too.” I smile and my heart races as Ella continues looking at me with a wide, happy grin on her face. For some reason, a memory suddenly pops into my head- the memory Ella telling me that for her, the most attractive quality a guy can possess is confidence. I take a deep breath to bolster my confidence, before leaning into the beautiful blonde girl and giving her a long, soft kiss on her lips that lasts for several seconds before we pull back from each other, a look of shock on both our faces.

“Umm, I-“ I stammer, before yelping in shock as Ella suddenly grabs my head and gives me a long, deep, probing kiss that I’m only too happy to reciprocate.

The next few minutes pass by in a haze as Ella and I are whipped up in a whirlwind of pure lust, which only ends when both of us collapse back on her bed, our naked bodies slick with sweat. Thanks to her drunken state, Ella is quickly asleep, but I’m so energised I lay awake for several minutes, staring at the blonde girl in a state of near disbelief. Ella, the tall, gorgeous model who parties with celebrities… Has just had sex with me. More than that, she’s taken my virginity, and if she wasn’t asleep right now, it’d take all of my willpower not to make love to her once again… A part of me even feels like I love her.

I must have eventually drifted off to sleep, as the next thing I’m aware of is being woken by the sound of Ella’s curtains opening and a bright light shining on my tired face.

“…Morning,” the already fully-clothed Ella mumbles, clearly a lot more ‘reserved’ than she was last night.

“Morning,” I whisper. “So, umm…”

“Yeah…” Ella whispers. “Ian, I- about last night, I…”

“…Sorry?” I ask, biting my lip nervously.

“Oh- no, I DEFINITELY enjoyed last night,” Ella says, making me smile. “I don’t regret it at all, so no worries there, it’s just- you- you’re really not the person I thought I’d end up in bed with this weekend!”

“So- so I was just imagining you flirting with me, then?” I mumble.

“…I wouldn’t have had sex with you if I wasn’t attracted to you,” Ella says. “It’s just- well, you know, you live in Wales, I live in London… It’s not like we can be, you know, a ‘regular’ thing…”

“Oh,” I mumble, even as I’m forced to acknowledge that Ella is talking sense.

“I mean, next time you’re in London,” Ella says, “or if I’m ever in Cardiff, and we’re both single… Ian, I- I don’t really want a long-distance relationship, not right now.”

“…You come from Australia and you consider London to Cardiff to be ‘long distance’?” I counter.

“How much did your train ticket cost again?” Ella retorts, and I’m forced to concede the point.

“But- but you still want, you know, to be friends, right?” I hesitantly ask.

“Oh, definitely!” Ella says, sitting down next to me and giving me a gentle hug. “We can even do ‘friends with benefits’ if you want. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you really know your way around ‘down there’, heh.”

“Works for me, I suppose,” I shrug. “It- it was my favourite part of last night, you know.”

“…Mine too,” Ella says with a smile. “Now come on, get up and get dressed, reckon we’re going to have a LOT of explaining to do, heh!” I smile as I get up and pull on a fresh set of underwear (including my bandage), followed by my jeans and my trusty Wales football shirt, though inside, there’s a part of me that’s disappointed in Ella’s reaction to last night, and a part of me that really wishes I was staying in London just a little bit longer.

However, my home is in Cardiff, not London, so after a quick breakfast with Ella’s grandmother- who, surprisingly, doesn’t make any comment at the fact that I obviously didn’t sleep on the sofa last night- I head back to Paddington station, where I try to suppress my emotions as I bid Ella farewell with a long, tight hug. This last week has been probably the most manic of my entire life, and that’s saying something. One thing’s for certain, though- as much as I’ll miss Ella, I will be happy to be back within my ‘comfort zone’. And I can always chat with Ella on Facebook anytime I want… Though there’s no way our friendship will ever be the same again.

After getting off the train at Cardiff Central Station, I actually breathe a sigh of relief when I head out into the car park and see my grandmother waiting for me in her car.

“I take it you enjoyed your ‘weekend’ away?” Grandma asks as I climb into the car with a massive smile on my face.

“I did,” I sigh happily. “I mean, it was pretty tiring, and I’m glad to be home, but all being told, I am glad I went.”

“Good, good,” grandma says. “Your friend Rob called earlier this morning, wanting to know when you’ll be home.”

“I’ll call him when I get back,” I say.

“He wasn’t the only person who called,” grandma says, her voice suddenly turning dark. “Ian, you- your mother called earlier this morning.”

“…What did she want?” I ask.

“She said,” grandma says, “and these are her words, not mine… She said ‘I hope my son enjoyed his party last night, and his meal on Thursday’.”

“…’My son’?” I ask.

“Those were her words,” grandma whispers as I let out a long, frustrated sigh. “Ian, this- this IS a step in the right direction.”

“Yeah,” I moan. “If that direction is ‘me being a global celebrity’. She only wants to accept me because I hung out with a load of famous people last night and she wants to leech off of it.”

“But she DOES want to accept you, Ian,” grandma insists. “Just a few days ago she said that you were dead to her.”

“I want her to accept me for who I am, not for my Facebook friends list,” I say. “One of the celebrities she adores so much- the one who used to teach me ballet- actually told me last night that mum’s attitude disturbed her.”

“…Ian, do you want to have a relationship with your mother?” Grandma asks.

“…Yes,” I sigh. “But on my terms. Not hers.”

“Families always compromise,” grandma says. “And I don’t mean that you should be the only one who compromises, I’ll make sure that your mother does as well.”

“Guessing she didn’t say anything about dad?” I mumble.

“…No, she didn’t,” grandma concedes. “Ian, you might not get another opportunity like this.” I’m forced to chuckle as grandma says this to me because of the many things it could refer to. Another opportunity to make up with mum? Another opportunity to be part of the ‘Angel’ family? Another opportunity to be with Ella…

“If she wants to come to Cardiff to meet her son, then that’s up to her,” I say defiantly, despite my grandmother's frown. "If she's willing to accept me when I'm playing D&D with Rob, Neil and Lee, THEN I'll talk to her again."

"Fair enough," grandma sighs, knowing as well as I do that what I just said would be a deal breaker for my mother. "That is absolutely, 100% fair. You- you just rest, try to relax for the rest of the holiday, Ian. You've definitely earned it!"

"Thanks," I whisper.

"Though you ARE getting up early tomorrow for church!" Grandma says firmly. "Especially since you missed Good Friday yesterday!"

"Yes, grandma," I say with a chuckle as we head back home- the one place where I do truly feel 'at home'.

My parents- especially my mother- have made their feelings clear. Male or female, all I am to them is a possession, only worthy of their love if I 'obey'. Which I have no intention of doing. By contrast, Stuart and his friends seemed genuinely interested in getting to know Ian the person, and most of them had never even heard of me before Abbey-Gayle's party. And then there's Ella...

Obviously, I'm not going to 'kiss and tell' with the boys. Especially as I can't decide what my feelings toward Ella even are. Do I love her? Would I be happy being just 'friends with benefits'? Or even just friends without benefits? One thing's for sure, Ella's going to go all out to be a part of the 'Angel family', so if I DID start a relationship with her, it'd make my mother love me more, but for all the wrong reasons, which might even make me resent Ella...

Ugh. Things were so much simpler when I just stayed in Cardiff, minding my own business...

“Come on, hand them over,” Lee insists, making the other four of us chuckle as we pass him our empty drinks cans.

“Seriously, man, can we at least see what it looks like?” Neil asks. “This project of yours that you’re working on?”

“Not until it’s a bit more complete,” Lee says. “Still annoyed I missed the deadline this May, don’t need you guys breaking it before it has a chance to compete!”

“Suit yourself,” I sigh. “You’ve got plenty of time to work on it this summer, though.”

“Yeah, assuming I want to spend all my time indoors this summer,” Lee retorts. “Which I don’t.”

“You just go ahead and betray your nerd heritage,” Rob laughs as he and his brother pack away the Xbox controllers we’ve spent all afternoon ‘using’.

“He’s got a point, though,” Neil says. “If this room wasn’t as well air-conditioned as it is…”

“Well, we’ll get plenty of ‘air conditioning’ tomorrow!” Rob laughs.

“And maybe even some female interest,” Neil says, making the rest of us laugh. “Well, ONE of us might, anyway…” Despite myself, I blush as the other guys give me a few playful shoves.

“Assuming you wouldn’t rather ‘go down under’,” Lee says, earning a less playful shove in response. “…Touched a nerve, have I? Not my fault I’m not going out with an Australian supermodel…”

“Hardly ‘going out’,” I feebly mumble in response. Though, I’m forced to admit to myself, they’re not THAT far wrong.

It’s been three and a half months since Abbey-Gayle’s birthday party, and in that time, I have made nine trips to London to see Ella, and she’s made two trips to see me, and on each occasion, the Australian girl and I have ended up having sex. And on every occasion, I have been surprised for two reasons- one, that the 5’ 10”, size 8 model with the 40” legs hadn’t found herself a stable boyfriend, and two, that she’d actually find a 5’ 7”, (for obvious reasons) feminine-looking guy like me attractive enough to have sex with.

That said though, ten months of flooding my veins with testosterone has gone a long way toward eliminating- or at the very least, disguising- my body’s natural femininity. And the guys aren’t wrong when they say I’m likely to get female attention when we go to the beach tomorrow. My arms and legs are muscular (and covered in fine, wispy hairs), my face is covered in a light haze of stubble and my short, blond hair is spiked into a fashionable hairstyle. I even have a fledgling six pack- though of course, I won’t be able to display it at the beach, not without also displaying the tight elastic bandage covering my chest- or worse yet, uncovering my chest completely. One thing this year at college has proved is that you can have as many muscles as you want, but when girls know that you have similar ‘equipment’ to them, they get turned off VERY quickly. At first, I could pass this off as me being part of an ‘uncool’ clique, but when these same girls began paying an interest to my three friends, I got the message very quickly, and many evenings saw me chomping down hard on my stuffed giraffe’s leg in a desperate attempt to ease my frustration.

Frustration not helped by the fact that every time we meet up, Ella inevitably posts a photo of the two of us on her Instagram or her Twitter page, and within 24 hours of those photos being uploaded, my ‘mother’ will have called my grandmother for an update on my life. She also called one other time, in the middle of May- but even then, it wasn't just to catch up. A few weeks after my first 'encounter' with Ella, I was invited down to London to participate in a photoshoot with eight other transgendered people (celebrity and non-celebrity alike) for the magazine of a Sunday newspaper. The sight of me interacting with the likes of Jamie-Lee Burke and Stephanie Abbott sent my mother into a frenzy- which was all the confirmation I needed that she never saw me as a child, only as a potential retirement plan. And naturally, the photoshoot did nothing to improve my popularity at college. If anything, it made me even LESS popular with everyone outside my close group of friends.

My 'mother' never calls at any other time, of course, and my ‘father’ never calls at all. Every time she calls, she always asks to speak to me, but I always decline- I have nothing to say to her, especially as it’s obvious that she still sees me more as a meal ticket than a son. Though as grandma has been quick to point out, she is more willing to see me as a son than a daughter…

What’s even more frustrating is that I’m pretty sure that without a childhood spent dancing, doing gymnastics and various other physical activities, I wouldn’t be as physically fit as I am now- and it’s obvious that my mum knows that too, going by grandma’s summaries of each call that she takes. She’d clearly prefer it if mum and I got along again, and there’s a part of me that wants that too… But on my terms. If mum wants ‘Ian the celebrity boyfriend’, then she’ll have to accept ‘Ian the gamer’ and ‘Ian the nerd’ as well, and I know her well enough to know that that will be a bridge too far. And I know dad well enough to know that with his mother still in the picture and controlling his life, ‘Ian the son’ will never be accepted in his house. It’s also telling that mum’s never come to visit us in Cardiff- though she’s often asked (and sometimes insisted) that we go and visit her. London IS where all the celebrities are, after all…

I’ve not had that much help from my new ‘mentor’, either. We’ve messaged each other a few times, though most of the time he’s messaged me I’ve got the impression that his wife pressured him into doing it- not least because he started one conversation by saying ‘Hey Ian, Jamie was wondering how you were and asked me to message you’. Other times he just messaged me to boast, what with him being a Chelsea fan and all. I guess guys just aren’t as comfortable talking about personal stuff with other guys. Then again, most ‘guys’ don’t boast to other guys about the fact that they’ve stopped menstruating…

The one source of comfort in my life, though, is that all these stresses are miles away in London, while I’m more settled than ever in my life in Cardiff. I passed my first year of college without any major hassle and have been accepted onto the next level of the course next year (and even had a look at studying graphic design at university), my job is going well and I’ve been promised additional hours from work (and therefore additional money), I still see my counsellor once a week (and they have been a BIG help at times) and obviously, I can count on my friends and my grandmother- the one member of my family whose love isn’t conditional- for support. Things aren’t bad in my life, certainly… But they could be a whole lot better.

As I head home, though, I pass several young women on their way into the city centre, each one wearing short, tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and a ton of make-up, and I’m reminded that my life could very easily be a whole lot WORSE than it is.

“Hello Ian!” Grandma greets me as I walk through the front door and collapse heavily on the sofa. “That’s right, you just rest while I wait on you hand and foot…”

“Sorry,” I mumble, slowly lifting my tired body off the sofa before heading to the kitchen to help the elderly woman prepare dinner. “Just, you know, long day…”

“Sitting on a sofa all day playing games? Very tiring,” grandma says with a derisive snort of laughter.

“I- never mind…” I sigh. As much as I love my grandmother, and as much as I rely on her support, she’s hardly the most sympathetic person in the world. Still, at least I know that unlike some members of my family, she actually cares about me as a person, rather than a pension fund…

As I get ready for bed, pulling on a loose t-shirt and a pair of shorts, I look at the stuffed giraffe sitting on my chest of drawers, who’s staring back at me with his big, cartoon eyes. There were some weeks, some months even, when I’d spend every night with one of his legs clamped between my teeth. It didn’t help matters then, and it certainly wouldn’t right now, but there’s a very large part of me that just wants to spend the rest of the night screaming away my frustrations.

When I wake up the following morning, however, my tensions are eased slightly by the warmth of the Sun shining through my bedroom window- and the knowledge that I’ll get to spend all day relaxing underneath it. No stress about my family, no stress about my gender, no stress about anything at all. Just me and my friends, on a beach, chilling out. The last time this happened, last year, I spent countless stressful hours barely covered by a tiny bikini, being ogled by several dozen meatheads on a Spanish beach, and by the end of that ‘holiday’ I was more stressed than ever. However, if it wasn’t for that experience, ‘Ian’ wouldn’t a full-time thing right now…

Despite the memory of last year, I have a smile on my face as I pull on a comfortable, loose pair of swim shorts that show off my toned legs (and more importantly, the fine hairs on them). After slipping my feet into a pair of pristine white trainers, I wrap my bandage around my chest, before pulling on a loose basketball-style tank top that shows off every inch of my arms, but thankfully keeps my chest hidden from view. The clothes are loose enough to obscure the unfortunate shape of my skeleton, but I still opt not to shave off the light fuzz that has grown on my face, earning a tut from my grandmother as I grab my backpack and head downstairs.

“You’d better have that shaved off before church tomorrow!” Grandma admonishes me.

“Yes, grandma,” I mumble, earning a sympathetic smile from the elderly woman.

“Just- you make sure you have fun today, okay?” Grandma says. “After the year you’ve had, you definitely deserve to be able to relax. It’s a pity that nice Australian girl couldn’t come up from London to spend the day with you today…” I grimace at grandma’s emphasis of the word ‘day’- on the occasions when Ella’s stayed overnight, she’s slept in my bed whilst I’ve slept on the sofa, as grandma doesn’t entirely approve of pre-marital sex, or sex before the age of eighteen (even though the legal age of consent in the UK is sixteen), or- even though she hasn’t outright said this and would probably deny it if asked- sex between two people with matching ‘sets’, like myself and Ella. Of course, Ella and I found a way to be together anyway during her visits, and grandma obviously knows this, but it’s just easier for both of us if we pretend that nothing happened.

“…Think that’s Rob’s car outside,” I mumble, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen over the room. “I’ll see you later this evening!”

“Take care, Ian!” Grandma shouts after me, waving as I leave the house and climb onto the back seat of the car.

“Hi Ian!” Rob says with a proud grin. “Like the wheels?”

“And let’s be fair, what’s not to like about a 12 year old Vauxhall Corsa?” Lee says, laughing as Rob gives him the middle finger in the rear view mirror.

“Bit small,” I comment, chuckling as I get a middle finger of my own.

“Parents wouldn’t go over £1000,” Rob explains. “Though the insurance is what really cost the most… technically, this is my dad’s car, I’m just a named driver. Otherwise it’d have cost about £5000 insuring it, heh.”

“Yeah, we’ve all seen that episode of Top Gear,” Neil laughs from his seat next to Rob. “Not exactly a chick magnet, to be fair…”

“Right, well, when you all pass your driving tests, then you can buy something better,” Rob snorts. “Oh wait- you haven’t passed them yet.”

“Yeah, not all of us have rich parents with well-paying jobs who can pay for lessons for us,” Lee reminds our driver.

“Not all of us have parents,” I mumble, grimacing as the atmosphere inside the car immediately darkens. “Umm, anyway…”

“Anyway,” Neil says, letting out a long sigh. “It’ll get us to the beach, which makes the car good enough, right?”

“’Course,” Lee shrugs.

“Yep!” I say with a grin.

“Might even pick us up some chicks,” Lee says.

“As long as they don’t mind riding back in the boot,” I say, making the car chuckle as we head toward Barry Island beach, which is, predictably, packed with sun worshippers when we arrive. So packed, in fact, that we haven’t even found a spot to set up when a group of three bikini-clad girls, who look about the same age as us, walk past with sly grins on their faces. There, but for the grace of god… I think to myself.

“Hello ladies,” Neil mutters to himself- though only, it should be pointed out, once the girls are out of earshot.

“Oh please,” Lee snorts. “Like they were smiling at YOU!”

“You never know,” Neil laughs as the four of us set up our beach towels and coolers full of food and drinks.

“No, we can guess, though,” Rob laughs, pointing at my upper arms.

“…What?” I protest.

“Ian, you’ve just volunteered to be wingman for the three of us today,” Lee laughs. “I call first dibs!”

“Why am I the ‘wingman’?” I moan. “…Suppose I want one of the girls for myself?” The odds of this are unlikely, admittedly, but I can’t help but wonder why I’m being automatically sidelined by my friends

“’Cause you already have a girlfriend,” Neil replies, making me roll my eyes. At least I’m not being ‘sidelined’ for the obvious reason…

“Ella is not, I repeat, NOT my girlfriend,” I say, sighing at my friends’ laughter. “We’re just friends.”

“With or without ‘benefits’?” Lee asks, laughing harder as a family-sized packet of crisps hits him square in the face.

“None of your fucking business,” I grunt.

“Well, either way, plenty of ‘benefits’ to be had today,” Neil laughs.

“Yeah, guys…” Rob grimaces. “Not sure we should be using the word ‘benefits’ when one of us has, you know, technically been-”

“It’s okay,” I shrug, even though Neil & Lee’s attitude is beginning to grate. Just because I no longer consider myself a woman, it doesn’t mean I automatically approve of objectifying them, especially not Ella. Even though the only thing Ella and I have in common is the ‘benefit’ the guys are talking about...

“Better to be an idiot staring at girls than be a girl being stared at by idiots, then?” Lee asks in his typically blunt manner.

“Infinitely better,” I laugh, taking a seat on the warm sand and covering my body with sunscreen. “I’ve already had more fun today than I did last year in Spain.”

“You’re probably being checked out as much,” Neil laughs. “Maybe even more, I know you’ve deleted most of the pictures of ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ and banned us from looking for them, but-“

“Nah, trust me, last year was worse,” I sigh.

“Because of who was doing the checking out or how much of it there was?” Lee asks, making me snort and roll my eyes.

“Both,” I sigh again. “That’s the worst thing about testosterone, your sex drive REALLY shifts up a few gears.”

“Well, fortunately,” Rob laughs, “you’ve got plenty of opportunities for a ‘test drive’ today!”

“Assuming you’ll still be allowed to go ‘Waltzing Matilda’ afterwards,” Lee laughs as he peels off his shirt and lays down a few feet away from me.

“Enough euphemisms, for god’s sake,” I moan, slipping on my sunglasses and trying to relax.

However, as much as my brain may want to chill out, the testosterone flowing through my veins is constantly drawing my attention toward the numerous bikini and swimsuit-clad beauties roaming the beach- and every time any of them even glance in my direction, my heart starts to beat faster. When they smile at me, it’s like my entire body begins to tremble. I try to engross myself in my kindle to distract me from my libido, but even the writing of Iain M Banks isn’t enough to keep me focussed when I see one girl in particular who’s wearing a cutaway pink swimsuit and a wide-brimmed sun hat, and whose smile actually makes me shiver with excitement as she walks past with her two friends.

The girl is petite, barely 5’ 2” tall, and has long hair the colour of fire that cascades over her shoulders. Her pale-skinned face and upper arms are covered with freckles, and her smile causes her cheeks to dimple and her deep blue eyes to sparkle. Even when you take into account the celebrities I’ve met, many of whom are professional models, this girl is still easily the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. And as guilty as the thought makes me, she’s more beautiful even than Ella…

“Guys,” Neil laughs, pointing at me and making me roll my eyes.

“Which one?” Lee asks. “The blonde, the brunette or the ginge?”

“…The ginge,” I confess, trying not to blush as the other guys playfully jeer me.

“What’s stopping you?” Rob asks. “She’s clearly into you, like every other girl on this beach…”

“Yeah, grow a little confidence!” Neil laughs, making me remember the lesson Ella taught me back in the Spring- that confidence is the most attractive quality a man can possess…

“Alright then,” I say, standing up. “Wingmen?”

“Seriously?” Lee asks, grinning as I nod. “Okay then! Dibs on the brunette!”

“I’ll take the blonde, then,” Neil says, standing up and following myself and Lee to the ice cream stand where the three girls are stood. “Rob, watch our stuff, okay?”

“Will do,” Rob laughs as the three of us take several deep breaths before stepping up to the counter where the girls have just ordered their frozen treats.

“We’ve got these,” I say with a confident grin, handing a five pound note to the vendor.

“Umm, excuse me?” The ginger girl snorts. “We CAN pay for our own ice cream, thank you very much.” Stay confident, Ian… I think to myself.

“Yeah, I’m sure you CAN,” I retort. “Doesn’t mean you SHOULD, right?” Much to my relief, the girl simply nods at the vendor, who accepts my money. She is so into me…

“Thanks,” the ginger girl says, trying not to blush.

“I- I’m Ian, by the way,” I say. “Ian Freeman. This is Neil and Lee.”

“Hi,” my two friends nervously wave at the other two girls, who smile and wave back.

“I’m Hannah,” the ginger girl says, and it might be my imagination, but it almost looks like she’s blushing herself…

“Cool,” I say with a nervous giggle as I lead Hannah away from the rest of the group. “So, like… Hannah Dexter? You know, from the Angels?”

“Can’t say I’m a fan,” Hannah says, screwing up her nose in an almost painfully cute way. “Always hated reality TV, phoneys…” Wow, this girl just gets better and better…

“So…” I ask. “What- what types of TV do you watch?” Please don’t ask me the same question, I think to myself. Don’t want to start off this conversation by admitting to being a Star Trek fan…

“…Doctor Who,” Hannah confesses, blushing hard underneath her wide-brimmed hat. “I know, I must sound like a total nerd…”

“Not at all,” I say, holding my hand up in a Vulcan salute that makes Hannah giggle excitedly.

“Oh wow,” Hannah giggles. “God, sorry…”

“What for?” I ask with a wide grin.

“For- ugh, I dunno,” Hannah laughs. “I thought that you were, you know, some kind of airhead for liking the Angels. Jodie and Emma- my friends over there- are obsessed with them, heh.”

“Yeah, I know a few people like that,” I giggle. One of whom hopefully won’t hate me for exploiting the ‘open’ aspect of our ‘open relationship’…

“I actually…” Hannah grimaces, “Actually… Went to a convention in costume last year.”

“Really?” I ask. “Who did you go as?”

“Amy Pond,” Hannah says. “I know, I’d need stilts to be as tall as Karen Gillan. But I have the hair, so, you know…”

“Obvious choice,” I say, making the ginger girl giggle. I take a deep breath before asking the ‘make or break’ question. “So, umm… Do- do you have a boyfriend?”

“…Nah,” Hannah says, shaking her head and blushing again. “No guy I know would be interested in a short, ginger nerd… The college I go to is full of leggy, 5’ 10” models, heh.” Like someone I know, I think to myself as I’m gripped by a pang of guilt. Still, if Ella wanted to be exclusive with me, she should’ve asked…

“Yeah, I’m not exactly Mr. Popularity at my college either, heh,” I say. “So, umm, what are you studying?”

“Digital art,” Hannah says. Not that different from my course, I think to myself. Could we be any more compatible?

“Graphic design,” I say.

“Really?” Hannah asks. “I’d have picked you more for a sporty subject, like athletics, or maybe basketball…” I giggle as a sly smile spreads across Hannah’s face. “I can’t believe for one second that you don’t have girls hanging off you everywhere you go, Trekkie or not!”

“I’m only 5’ 7”,” I shrug, before taking a deep breath. Might as well get it over and done with now, she couldn’t be flirting any harder, she’s obviously interested… “…And I kinda have- kinda have, you know, a ‘dark secret’…”

“Oh?” Hannah teases. “Now I’m intrigued… Let me guess, you’re not really Welsh?”

“No- well, kinda…” I grimace. “My father was English, but that’s not-“

“You…” Hannah interrupts. “You… Take a regular dance class?”

“Well- ugh. Used to, but no, that’s not it,” I sigh.

“Go on…” Hannah giggles. “I won’t judge, I promise!”

“Well- okay,” I giggle, reassured by the ginger girl’s warm smile. “I- I’m… I’m transgendered. I was born a girl, but I’m transitioning to male.” My stomach churns as Hannah’s smile immediately fades, to be replaced by a look of shock.

“Oh my god,” Hannah breathes, her shocked expression quickly making way for one of disgust. “Oh my god! You- that-“

“Hannah,” I sigh.

“Ew, just- just get away from me, you freak!” Hannah spits, attracting the attention of several nearby holidaygoers. “You- that- that’s disgusting! You’re really a girl!?”

“I WAS a girl,” I protest as I feel my blood pressure start to rise at the injustice of Hannah’s reaction. All the things we have in common, and this is the one deal-breaker…

“Same difference, freak!” Hannah spits. “Jodie! Emma! Get away from the freaks! We’re leaving!” I watch, my mouth agape, as Hannah takes her friends away from Lee and Neil- despite the fact that they were clearly getting along well- and marches away from the beach.

“What- what the hell was that!?” Neil asks.

“A small minded, bigoted BITCH!” I yell after the quickly-vanishing ginger girl. “That’s what that was!”

“Oh- mate…” Neil sighs.

“Why’d you even tell her?” Lee asks. “You were getting on so well…”

“…It’d be a hell of a thing to try to explain while we were getting into bed, wouldn’t it?” I retort, forcing the usually sarcastic boy to quietly concede the point. “’Be open and up front’, that’s what I’ve always been told. So fucking much for THAT!”

“Come on, mate,” Lee whispers, gently escorting me back toward our ‘spot’. “Plenty more fish, etc.”

“I hate fish,” I spit.

“Plenty more… burgers?” Neil suggests.

“Better a burger than a hot dog, right?” Lee asks, and despite myself, I’m forced to chuckle at his double entendre.

“You can be actually funny when you want to be, then?” I ask, making Lee snort with laughter.

“Stopped clocks are right twice a day,” Neil says, laughing as Lee gives him a playful shove.

“Struck out, then?” Rob asks as we crash back down on the towels next to him.

“Sensitive topic, mate,” Lee mutters, making me sigh as he slyly points in my direction.

“What? No, really?” Rob asks. “Oh, mate, I am so-“

“Trust me, you’re the last people who should apologise,” I spit. “But you can find another wingman.”

“Mate,” Neil says softly. “Before they found out about- well, you know… They WERE interested. Not everyone’s going to be so small-brained.”

“Ella isn’t,” Rob reminds me. “And as someone who’s seen photos of her, trust me when I say that she could easily have any guy she-“

“Enough,” I growl, silencing my friends.

“Just trying to help, mate,” Rob mumbles.

“I know,” I sigh. “And I’m sorry if I’m bringing everyone down, it’s just- gah, I dunno.”

“Nah, you’ve got nothing to apologise about either,” Lee shrugs. “Those bitches aren’t worth the time or effort, mate.”

“Just lay back, enjoy the sun, and try to relax,” Rob advises, handing me a can of ice-cold Coke that successfully cools my boiling temper.

“And let me have that can when you’re done with it,” Lee says, laughing as everyone pelts him with their empty cans.

I stay laid on my back for the rest of the day, not moving despite the considerable amount of female attention I get. I’m sure that Neil is right, that many of the girls would be okay with me being transgendered, but after what happened with Hannah, the last thing I want to do right now is open myself up for the kind of abuse I received. And yet, I know that there are plenty of people in the world in my position who have it much worse than me, who don’t have the friends I do who are willing to ‘catch’ me after such a brutal rejection, and who certainly don’t have someone like Ella who’s willing to listen to their woes- and do a lot more than just ‘listen’, if I wanted…

I arrive home just after 5pm, and after saying hi to grandma, I head upstairs to put away my things, change into slightly warmer clothes… And spend a good five minutes with my giraffe’s leg clamped between my teeth. Fortunately, grandma sympathises with me fully when I explain what happened over dinner.

“What a disgraceful young woman!” The elderly woman spits after I finish my recap of the day. “It sounds to me like you’re much better off having nothing to do with her at all!”

“Oh- definitely,” I reply. “It still hurts so much, though… Kinda- kinda like when grandma Walker, at Christmas, umm…”

“Another woman whose behaviour is a disgrace,” grandma growls as she remembers the moment when my father’s mother stated, in all sincerity, that she would rather I was dead than transgendered.

“Still, on the plus side, I’m probably never going to see Hannah again,” I shrug.

“Exactly,” grandma says with a proud smile. “And I know you’re strong enough to move past this, Ian. Now eat up! Want to keep that strength up, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” I laugh as I finish off my filling (and very tasty) cottage pie.

Despite my stress, my giraffe’s leg stays out of my mouth for the rest of the evening, and I head to bed early, hoping that a good night’s sleep will help ease my anxiety- especially as I’m woken early the next day by grandma, insisting that I get ready for church as quick as I can. Despite the warmth outside, I still dress in plain black trousers, a smart, long-sleeved shirt and a tie (and I of course shave what little facial have I've grown over the last week), before climbing onto the passenger seat of grandma’s car and heading to the small, ornate building where we spend every Sunday morning.

“You look very smart, Ian!” Grandma says with a proud grin as we take our seats on the hard wooden pews.

“Thanks,” I say, forcing a smile onto my face.

“I do hope you’ve put that awful girl out of your mind,” grandma says.

“…Mentioning her doesn’t help,” I retort, grimacing as grandma gives me a light whack on the shoulder with her hymn book.

“…I don’t suppose it does,” the elderly woman concedes. “Maybe… Maybe you should talk to your Australian friend about it? Maybe see if she’d like to come and stay for a couple of nights, perhaps?” I momentarily frown in confusion, before a smile spreads across my face- given grandma’s attitude toward Ella and I, specifically our ‘hobby’, she must be REALLY concerned to make an offer like that…

“I’ll message her when we get home,” I say with a smile as Reverend Stubbs arrives to begin the service.

45 minutes later, as we’re leaving the church, I shake Reverend Stubbs’s hand as always, but today, the young priest is seemingly able to sense that all isn’t as it should be with me right now.

“Hello Ian,” Reverend Stubbs says cautiously. “You enjoying your summer holiday so far?”

“Yeah,” I half-lie, grimacing as grandma gives me another whack with her hymn book. “…Mostly.”

“I think Ian could use a one to one chat,” grandma says, making my cheeks redden.

“…Come on,” Reverend Stubbs says, leading me to one of the pews where we take a seat. “What’s happened?”

“Ugh,” I spit. “It- it’s just a girl I was talking to yesterday. We were at the beach, we got chatting, she seemed REALLY into me…”

“I think I can figure out the rest,” Reverend Stubbs says softly.

“Kinda ruined my whole day,” I sigh. “Maybe ruined my whole holiday…”

“Only if you let it,” Reverend Stubbs says. “’Carpe Diem’ might not be a biblical quote but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good one. You can let this girl make you miserable, or you can choose to forgive and forget and move on. Obviously I’m going to advocate for ‘forgiveness’ but I can appreciate how it doesn’t happen automatically. And before you say anything, yes, I know how depression isn’t something you can beat in a snap by simply ‘getting over it’.”

“Let me guess: God doesn’t give us anything we can’t deal with?” I ask.

“…I’ll admit, the suicide rate in this country is kinda a convincing counter-argument to that phrase,” Reverend Stubbs mumbles. “But I prefer the phrase ‘God doesn’t give us anything we can deal with… Provided we have the right help’. You have friends and family, Ian. I consider myself to be in the first category. Sometimes, all you need to do is ask.”

“And… And if the person I’m ‘asking’ is someone with whom I have regular casual sex?” I ask, grimacing as the young priest starts to fidget.

“Unlike most people who wear one of these,” Reverend Stubbs says, pointing to his collar, “I like to think that God’s more interested in what you put in your heart, rather than where you put, well, you know. As long as you have love and friendship in your heart, that’s the important thing.”

“Even for those who call me a freak?” I ask.

“Okay, love, friendship and forgiveness,” Reverend Stubbs concedes. “I’m not saying that you should reach out to people like that. But don’t get so worked up that you end up hating the girl. That’s a vicious cycle that does no one any good.”

“…Thanks,” I mumble. “I won’t.”

“Good lad,” Reverend Stubbs says. “I’ll let you get off, got to get changed out of my dress, heh!”

“I’ve got to get to work,” I say with a chuckle. “Thanks for the talk.”

“That’s what friends are for,” Reverend Stubbs says as I get up and head to where grandma is stood with a proud smile on her face.

“Did talking to the vicar help?” Grandma asks.

“Yes,” I concede with a light chuckle. “Can you drop me off at work on the way home, please?”

“Of course,” grandma chuckles as we get back into her car.

A short while later- after changing from my smart shirt and tie into the branded polo shirt of the shop where I work- I let out a sigh of relief as I take my place behind my regular till, staring at the relative emptiness of the store.

“Sometimes I wonder why we even bother opening in summer,” Dean- my supervisor- laughs.

“…Cause the kids are off school?” I ask.

“Exactly,” Dean snorts. “They’re more likely to come in during the week rather than the weekend. Still, we get paid to stand here regardless, so we can’t really complain. How’d your trip to the beach go yesterday?”

“Ugh, somewhere between ‘crap’ and ‘evil’,” I spit.

“Oh, mate,” Dean sighs. “What happened?”

“Got chatting to a girl,” I sigh. “Thought I was in with a chance, figured I’d better tell her about- well, you know- sooner rather than later… Turns out it was better to tell her sooner rather than later, that way I don’t end up wasting time on a total bigot.”

“God,” Dean spits. “Some people…”

“The one thing is that it is ‘some’ people and not ‘most’ people. Ooh, speaking of…” I’m forced to grin as the front door of the shop suddenly opens to reveal Rob and his brother, both of whom suppress giggles as they see me standing behind the till.

“Hi guys!” Dean- who is well acquainted with the brothers- yells. “What you after today?”

“Hey Dean,” Rob replies. “Got the new Spiderman Funkos in?”

“Not yet,” Dean sighs. “Reckon we’ll get them in the delivery tomorrow though.”

“Eh, fair enough,” Rob sighs, before turning to me with an awkward look on his face. “How- how you doing after yesterday, Ian?”

“Been better,” I shrug. “Just want to put it behind… Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me…”

“What?” Dean and Rob both ask, following my gaze to the front door of the shop. There, large as life, is the ginger-haired form of the girl who so cruelly insulted me at the beach yesterday- though obviously her swimsuit has been replaced by a short black skirt and a t-shirt bearing the face of a Cyberman. It’s clear that she immediately recognises me, too- though the look in her eyes isn’t one of anger, or scorn, but one of extreme discomfort, and maybe even a little shame…

“Her?” Dean whispers to me, sighing as I nod. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” I say, trying not to bite my lip as Hannah picks a few packets of Pokemon cards off a shelf before approaching my till.

“Hi,” Hannah mumbles.

“Hi,” I whisper as we both desperately try to avoid eye contact. “Did- did you find everything you’re looking for?”

“Yeah,” Hannah mumbles. Any time you want to apologise… I think to myself.

“Would you like a bag?” I ask in a hoarse voice, barely louder than a whisper.

“No,” Hannah mutters, her cheeks quickly turning bright red.

“Thanks,” I mumble as Hannah quickly grabs her purchases and all but bolts out of the store. Once she’s out of sight, I let out a long sigh and slump forward onto the counter, trying to stop my whole body from shivering with nerves.

“Goddd…” I moan.

“Mate, go in the back, take a breather,” Dean says softly.

“I’m fine,” I insist.

“You’re not,” Dean says bluntly, before letting out a long sigh of his own. “She- she comes in quite a bit. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed her before…”

“Easier to notice someone where they’re wearing a skin-tight swimsuit,” Rob says, earning a glare from me that soon turns into a sigh and a nod.

“God knows I know THAT’s true,” I sigh. “From both sides, heh.”

“She’s usually so sweet,” Dean muses. “Hard to believe she can be so bigoted.”

“Believe it,” I snort. “…Think I will take that break, actually…”

“Take your time, mate,” Dean says. “We’re quiet enough, can manage without you for a bit.”

“Thanks,” I whisper, saying goodbye to Rob and his brother before heading to the back room, where I let out a long, frustrated moan. If only I had my giraffe here… Doubt it’d get away with biting off the leg of one of the Minecraft soft toys in the back room. At least Hannah didn’t come in here and immediately confront me- then again, she WAS outnumbered, and I know Dean well enough to know that he wouldn’t hesitate to ban someone from the store for the way she behaved yesterday. That still didn’t make it any less stressful to be staring her in the face less than 24 hours later, though…

After ten minutes, I’ve just about calmed myself back down, but even though I know Hannah is unlikely to return- possibly ever- I’m still reluctant to head back out onto the shop floor. We’re allowed to take up to half an hour for our lunch breaks on a Saturday, and even though it’s early, it’s also still very quiet, so I stick my head around the door to let Dean know I’ll be taking my lunch now- a decision he obviously doesn’t have a problem with. Rather than reach into my jacket pocket for my lunch, though, I instead grab my phone, and open up the messaging app. I immediately grin when I see which name is on top of the ‘online’ list, before composing a message to said person.

‘Hey Ella!’ I type with a smiling emoji.

‘Hi Ian!’ Ella types, followed by several grinning and one ‘kissing’ emoji. ‘How was the beach day? That was yesterday, right?’ Way to go straight for an open wound, I think to myself, before chastising myself as I realise that Ella doesn’t have any way of knowing about Hannah.

‘Three letters: KMN,’ I reply with a sad emoji.

‘Oh no!’ Ella replies, followed by a string of emojis including several hugging ones. ‘What happened?’ Yeah… I think to myself. This could take some explaining…

‘You know how we’re kinda in a ‘friends with benefits’ relationship, right?’ I ask after typing and deleting almost a dozen similarly-worded sentences.

‘Yes…’ Ella replies.

‘So if either of us meet someone we like, we don’t feel that we need to, you know, stay with each other?’ I ask.

‘Did you meet someone yesterday, Ian?’ Ella asks. ‘Because it’s okay if you did, like you said, we’re not obliged to stay together. If anything it’s my ego that’s most hurt as I thought I’d find someone else first lol.’

‘Have you been looking?’ I hastily type, momentarily forgetting all about Hannah.

‘Not seriously,’ Ella replies. ‘I’m happy not being in a committed relationship for now, and you are surprisingly good in bed!’ I roll my eyes at the winking emoji that follows Ella’s message.

‘Surprisingly?’ I retort.

‘Well- you know, right?’ Ella types.

‘For a guy without a dick?’ I ask, laughing at the blushing emoji I get in response.

‘Just means you REALLY know your way around down there!’ Ella types with a winking emoji, which I reply to with a grinning one. ‘Still feeling like KMN?’ Actually… No I’m not, I think to myself.

‘Not as much as I was ten minutes ago,’ I confess.

‘I spread happiness wherever I go,’ Ella replies. ‘So what did happen yesterday, then?’

‘So much for spreading happiness,’ I reply with a ‘sticking out tongue emoji’

‘So sue me for being curious,’ Ella retorts. ‘Just want to scope out my competition, that’s all. And if it upsets you, I’ll just have to cheer you up again!’

‘Lol,’ I reply. ‘And hardly ‘competition’. We were at the beach, I saw this girl, we got chatting, turns out we had a lot in common.’

‘By which you mean you’re both nerds?’ Ella asks with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji.

‘Exactly,’ I reply with the smuggest emoji I can find, that earns a ‘laughing’ emoji in response from Ella. ‘Turns out there’s one thing we don’t have in common, though- that girl was a massive, MASSIVE transphobe.’

‘Ew,’ Ella types with an angry emoji.

‘That’s what she said when I told her,’ I reply, which earns another hugging emoji from Ella. ‘Kinda ruined the rest of the day. And even better, she just came into the shop about twenty minutes ago.’

‘OMG!’ Ella types. ‘Like your life wasn’t stupidly unfair as it is!’

‘So yeah, really feeling sorry for myself right now,’ I type.

‘You’re entitled to under the circs,’ Ella types. ‘Even if you are a BOY! Which means you need to get over it soon!’

‘And how am I supposed to do that?’ I ask with another smug emoji.

‘Oh, you know how,’ Ella types with a smug emoji of her own. ‘And you know where, too!’

‘Lol,’ I reply with a grinning emoji. ‘You know, grandma actually said you could come and stay with us for a few days if you want. Even got the impression that she’d be okay with us sleeping together.’

‘Miracles do happen!’ Ella replies with a winking emoji. ‘Can’t really get away this coming week though, got work every day apart from tomorrow. Especially Tuesday night…’

‘What’s happening Tuesday night?’ I reply.

‘OMG you total BOY!’ Ella types with an ‘eye rolling’ emoji. ‘The what you call football but is actually soccer match? The one that’s been plugged on the Angels’ Facebook page for weeks?’

‘I don’t really follow that page,’ I reply with a ‘blushing’ emoji.

‘BOY,’ Ella retorts with a winking emoji. ‘You know Joshua benedict bought that soccer club a few months ago, right?’

‘No,’ I reply. ‘And don’t say BOY as it’s about football so I probably should know. And I don’t take ‘boy’ as an insult anyway, so there!’ Fortunately, my ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji gets a ‘laughing’ one in response.

‘He bought this club called Acton Rovers, who are in the National League, I think, and he’s hosting a celebrity match between the girls to promote the new season that’s coming up. It’ll be England vs the rest of the world.’

‘And you’ll be on team rest of the world, I take it?’ I ask.

‘Duh,’ Ella replies with a winking emoji and one in the shape of the Australian flag.’ You’d better be rooting for RotW too!’

‘Duh,’ I reply, followed by an emoji shaped like the Welsh flag.

‘Sooooooooo…’ Ella types. ‘Should I try to get you a ticket? I know your friend Stuart will be there, so will Reuben and the other guys. It’ll definitely take your mind off things.’

‘Yeah, go on then,’ I type, earning a ‘grinning’ emoji from Ella. ‘You said you’re not at work tomorrow?’

‘Nope!’ Ella types with a grinning emoji.’ Tomorrow and Tuesday I am all yours!’

‘I AM at work tomorrow,’ I type with a sad emoji, earning one from Ella in response. ‘I’m on until 5pm, but I can always get a late train to London.’

‘Only leaving enough time for the important stuff?’ Ella types with a winking emoji.

‘Blame my boss,’ I retort with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji. ‘Speaking of, my break’s almost over, got to get back to work now.’

‘Aww,’ Ella types with a sad emoji, followed by a ‘hugging’ one. ‘Will give you one of those for real tomorrow!’

‘Can’t wait!’ I type with a grinning emoji. ‘See you tomorrow!’

‘Bye Ian!’ Ella types as I put my phone back in my coat pocket and head back out to finish my shift- though the smile on my face doesn’t go unnoticed by my boss, or by my friends, who are still in the store.

“No prizes for guessing who put that smile back on his face,” Rob teases, making me roll my eyes as I head back behind my till.

“What are you still doing here?” I ask.

“Is that any way to talk to a customer?” Rob retorts, looking toward my supervisor, who just laughs as I roll my eyes again. “And we haven’t been here the whole time, we popped out for lunch and just wanted to make sure that you’re okay.”

“D’aww,” Dean teases, making me roll my eyes for what feels like the millionth time today.

“…I’m fine,” I say.

“Though you won’t be around the next few days?” Rob asks.

“…Maybe not on Tuesday or Wednesday,” I mumble, trying not to blush as my friends good-naturedly laugh at me.

“Good job you’re not scheduled in on either day,” Dean laughs. “But you are today, so stop yacking and get some prices on those games that were traded in this morning.”

“Yes sir,” I say with a sarcastic chuckle as I start scanning the games into the till.

Naturally, grandma was okay with my impromptu trip to London when I told her about it- just like all the previous times I’d headed down there- and for the first time in a while, I went to bed that night without even once feeling the urge to wrap my teeth about my giraffe’s leg.

Work the following day went as smoothly as I’ve ever known it to go. Naturally, Hannah doesn’t show up at any point during the day, meaning that I stay relaxed throughout the morning- even when Lee and his unwanted comments show up- and excited throughout the afternoon. By the time the shop shuts at 5:30pm, I’m practically bouncing up and down with excitement, which only grows when Dean drops me off at Cardiff Central station.

Just over two hours later, my train arrives at London Paddington station, and immediately as I step onto the platform, I grin when I see a familiar tall, blonde figure approach me, wrapping me in a tight hug and actually lifting me off my feet!

“Hi Ian!” Ella giggles as she puts me down. “I’m sorry, I know you told me not to do that anymore…”

“I’ll let you off this one time,” I giggle as I link fingers with the tall girl- who is, of course, also wearing wedge heels to boost her height to over six feet- and head out into the station car park, where we climb into her shiny new Renault Clio.

“Like the new wheels?” Ella asks.

“Very nice,” I say with a quiet chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” Ella asks.

“Oh- nothing,” I sigh. “It’s just that you’re not my only friend who’s just got a new car. This is a lot nicer than Rob’s, though…”

“Well, I’m guessing ‘Rob’ doesn’t have a very well-paid career modelling tights!” Ella giggles.

“That’s a given, and thank you for the mental image,” I reply, making Ella giggle even more.

“Ah, you’re welcome,” Ella laughs. “So… How you holding up? After the weekend, I mean, god knows I-“

“I’m okay,” I half-lie. “I can put it behind me, move on…”

“…But?” Ella probes, making me sigh heavily.

“…But I’m always going to be paranoid that literally everyone I meet will be the same way,” I moan. “That I’ll never find someone who accepts me for who I am. Who I REALLY am.”

“Who says you haven’t?” Ella asks in a soft voice that makes me grin widely. “I mean, okay, we’re not TECHNICALLY boyfriend and girlfriend, and we don’t have a hell of a lot in common, but- but I don’t see you as any other than a guy. A cute guy too, seeing how much your muscles have grown since last time I saw you!”

“Thanks,” I mumble, blushing despite my best efforts.

“And I’m speaking as someone who knew ‘Kayleigh-Ann’,” Ella says. “No offence, but I’d NEVER have slept with her!”

“Umm…” I say. “We ARE the same person, kinda.”

“Exactly,” Ella says with a smug grin. “’Kinda’. You have changed a lot this last year, and for the better.”

“Not everyone would agree,” I sigh.

“Well those people don’t deserve to have an opinion,” Ella says. “Do you know how many transgendered people will be playing in the match tomorrow? Not just present, but actually playing? Including substitutes, TEN. Out of thirty-two. And these women aren’t all white, aren’t all the same religion, aren’t all the same orientation, aren’t all the same nationality- obviously, hehe!”

“…Point?” I ask, making the Australian girl roll her eyes.

“The point,” Ella says firmly, “is that if you’re looking for somewhere to belong, somewhere where you won’t be judged no matter what, a ‘family’ who’ll love you unconditionally… You might have already walked away from it.”

“What ‘walked away’?” I retort. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Difference between a booty call and truly being part of a community,” Ella shrugs. “You could be a part of this community any time you wanted, you know?”

“…You know who you sound like, right?” I mumble, causing Ella to gasp and her eyes to go wide.

“Oh- jeez, sorry!” The Australian girl grimaces, moaning in embarrassment. “Sorry, sorry, sorry… Jeez, sometimes I forget about your mum, I’m so, so sorr-“

“Forget about it,” I said in a cold voice. “Really, PLEASE forget about it.”

“Will do,” Ella whispers, her cheeks turning red as we drive back to her home in silence.

Fortunately, once we arrive at the small house, the smile on Ella’s grandmother’s face (and the cups of tea she makes for us) eases helps to ease the tension.

“Thanks, grandma,” Ella says, taking her mug of tea as we sit down together on the sofa.

“Thanks,” I say with a shy smile.

“Thank you for coming down for the match tomorrow!” Ella’s grandmother chuckles. “Didn’t think I’d see you again until Ella’s birthday later in the month, you must be spending a fortune on train fares…”

“I have a railcard,” I shrug. “And I’m getting plenty of hours at the shop over the summer holiday.”

“I hope you’re getting the chance to relax, too!” Ella’s grandmother chuckles.

“…When I can,” I reply. “Hoping to relax a lot during this visit.” I try not to grimace as the tall blonde girl sat next to me giggles- she clearly has her own idea of what she finds ‘relaxing’.

“Well, I’m sure you will,” Ella’s grandmother says. “God knows it’s Ella who’ll be doing all the hard work tomorrow night.” This time, it’s my turn to giggle as Ella nearly chokes on her tea- her mind is still clearly on one thing only…

“Ah yes, the football match,” I say with a grin.

“You technically could root for both England and the rest of the world, couldn’t you?” Ella’s grandmother asks. “Technically, so could Ella.”

“I doubt my brothers would ever forgive me if I started rooting for England, heh,” Ella chuckles, coughing to try to get her voice back to normal.

“I doubt my friends would forgive me,” I laugh. “We went to see Wales vs England in February, in the Six Nations, and my friends- who are all 100% Welsh- were a bit unhappy at the comeback England made, and with me being half-English, they barely spoke to me for a week afterward...” I grimace as my tale causes an unexpected awkward silence to fill the room.

“Anyway,” Ella says, it’s getting pretty late, and we’ve both had a long day…

“Ah, yes,” Ella’s grandmother says with a knowing- if cautious- smile. “You two get your ‘rest’.”

“Thanks, grandma!” Ella giggles, finishing her tea before grabbing my hand and leading me up to her bedroom.

Naturally, once the door closes, our lips quickly join together and our hands strip each other of our clothing...

Less than half an hour later, the two of us lay next to each other under the cool sheets on Ella’s bed, our bodies slick with sweat both from the summer heat and our strenuous activity. As I feel a bead of sweat trickle between my legs, though, I grimace at the feel of it rolling over my most sensitive organ, an organ Ella expertly manipulated just now- but an organ that a boy just shouldn't have.

“What’s up, babe?” Ella asks, rolling over and looking me in the eye. “Normally that ‘loosens’ you up a LOT…”

“Ugh, it- I did enjoy it,” I say, trying not to sigh. “A LOT. Really. But... It just, you know, kinda hammers it home? That no matter what I say or do, my name might be ‘Ian’ but I’m just NOT a boy…”

“No,” Ella says firmly. “Ian- ugh. Just listen, okay. Your name IS Ian and you ARE a boy. I told you already, I’d never have done with ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ what we just did. I’m not a lesbian. I only ‘like’ boys. I ‘like’ you. Therefore, you’re a boy. Simple as.”

“A boy with boobs and a vagina,” I retort.

“Doesn’t mean I didn't orgasm a LOT just now,” Ella says. “It’s not about what you’ve got, it’s about what you do with it. And trust me, I know a few guys who you could teach a thing or two to!”

“Yeah,” I grimace. “I’d rather not think about ‘sex’ and ‘guys’ in the same sentence, if you don’t mind.”

“Fair enough,” Ella shrugs. “Do you know what that makes you?”

“What?” I ask.

“A heterosexual BOY,” Ella laughs, giving my muscular body a tight squeeze. “So roll over and go to sleep. Unless, of course, you’d prefer…” I twitch with pleasure as Ella's fingers once again stroke my pulsing, sensitive 'area' and take a deep breath to ready myself for what will inevitably come next...

The following morning, my eyelids slowly flutter open, only to be greeted by the sight of a long, twisted mass of platinum blonde hair. It’s a sight I was very used to in the past, of course, but it comes as a bit of a surprise now- until I remember exactly whose head the hair is attached to. I smile as I remember last night’s ‘half time talk’- Ella may be stereotypically blunt in the way she speaks, but she’s not wrong, and the fact that she’s still in bed next to me if proof of that. It doesn’t change the fact, though, that as I wrap my hands around Ella's soft breasts, I'm reminded of my own…

“Hands off…” Ella giggles as she slowly stirs.

“Really?” I ask.

“Even when you’ve got boobs of your own, you’re still obsessed with mine,” Ella laughs, making me grimace and immediately withdraw my hands.

“…Sorry,” I mumble as I roll over, turning my back to the Australian girl.

“Oh- jeez, no, I’M sorry,” Ella sighs, snuggling against my back. “Sometimes forget where ‘the line’s drawn…”

“It’s okay,” I mumble.

“Have you- have you, you know…” Ella hesitantly asks. “Thought about cutting them off? I mean, getting surgery?”

“Sometimes,” I say. “I mean, they really are the only thing ‘holding me back’… No one pays attention to a man without a bulge in his trousers, but a man with breasts…”

“You could always gain about 50 kilos, that’d disguise them,” Ella shrugs, making me look at her with a bemused look on her face. “Okay, it’d mean that we’d have to split up, but still…”

“I like my 32 inch waistline, thank you very much,” I retort. “And besides, cutting them off is the one thing there’s no going back from, it’s like, a step you can’t ‘un-take’.”

“Not without several kilos of silicone, anyway,” Ella says. “Have you spoken to Stuart about this? Someone who knows what you’re going through? Or Kelly’s boyfriend, Kurt I think his name is?”

“I don’t… Really speak to him that much,” I grimace. “Certainly not about, you know, ‘sensitive’ stuff…”

“Ugh, BOY,” Ella moans, rolling onto her back and letting out an exasperated moan.

“Take that as a compliment,” I say with a snort of laughter.

“This time, you shouldn’t,” Ella sighs. “You’re in a great position, you know? You’ve got a mentor who’s had all his surgeries, who can help you through all the tough decisions. God knows I’ve never had any desire to chop my own tits off so I’m not going to be any help there.”

“I know,” I sigh. "But does that really mean I can't wish I had more?"

"Of course it doesn't," Ella says softly. "It just means that you shouldn't push away the support that you DO have. Stuart will be at the match tonight, so you'll be able to chat with him there."

"Assuming he doesn't mock me for being a Gunners fan," I snort.

"Well if he does," Ella says with a smug grin, "you can mock him for supporting the England side tonight, when the rest of the world team is going to kick their arses all across London, hehe!"

"I'll hold you to that," I laugh as I climb out of bed and head to Ella's bathroom to get washed ahead of the day- an action that makes Ella roll her eyes when I return a mere five minutes later to get dressed.

"Wish there was a way girls could get ready in five minutes flat," Ella snorts as I wrap my bandage around my chest. "And I know you don't want to talk about it, but that does NOT look comfortable."

"It sucks," I sigh. "But all the alternatives suck more." Ella smiles sympathetically as I pull on my pants, socks, jeans and a comfortable t-shirt, before laying back down on the bed and watching as Ella heads to the bathroom, returning fifteen minutes later to fix her make-up before pulling on her own underwear and selecting an outfit for the day ahead.

"Am I boring you?" Ella teases as she throws four identical-looking short skirts on the bed and spends what feels like an age deciding which one to wear.

"Yes, but don't sweat it," I reply, laughing as one of the skirts hits me in the face. "What do you want to do today?"

"First, I've got to head to work," Ella sighs, finally settling on a short black pencil skirt and following up with a pair of black high-heeled shoes. "Hence the smart clothes, heh! I'm only getting new headshots done, though, shouldn't take more than 45 minutes so you can come along if you want?"

"Umm, sure," I shrug. "Where is it, a studio?"

"Yeah, the one in the Heavenly Talent offices," Ella replies, frowning with confusion as I visibly shudder. "...What's up?"

"Nothing," I reply, before letting out a long, pained sigh. "You know, if my mum saw me walk into that place, she'd probably jump for joy..."

"Is- is that necessarily a bad thing, though?" Ella asks. "I read that magazine article, you WERE really good in it. Why not take advantage of that fame? It's not going to last forever, you know."

"I'd rather it didn't last at all," I moan. "I like my life in Cardiff, I've got friends, family, no, you know, 'pressure'... I can just kick back, eat and drink what I want and spend the whole evening playing videogames rather than dressing up in some stupid costume and hang out with a bunch of airheads..."

"Getting kinda hard not to take this personally," Ella says, making me wince.

"Sorry," I mumble. "I didn't mean you personally, it's just- you know? Having to keep up appearances, put on a smile when inside I'm screaming in frustration... What was my entire childhood. I don't want to have to keep doing that."

"...I thought that was the reason you wrapped that bandage around your tits," Ella says, making me sigh yet again. "And didn't you say before that your mum would be just as happy with you being a male model?"

"That's not the point," I say. "I want to be my own person. I want- I want my mum to accept no matter what I choose to do in life. I spent a whole week earlier in the year laying out a design for a board game me and my friends made. Mum would be sick if she found out about that. If she's okay with that, then- and only then- I'll be okay going to a modelling agency."

"That- that's absolutely fair," Ella concedes with a quiet nod of her head. "Sometimes I kinda forget that not everyone wants to be rich and famous, heh."

"I'll settle for 'rich'," I say. "The guy who created Minecraft was a run of the mill programmer eight years ago, now he's a billionaire and hardly ever talks to anyone, just sits around all day playing videogames."

"Meh, whatever floats your boat," Ella shrugs. "Personally, I like people seeing my face, the more the better! Speaking of which, we need to get moving!"

I grin as I follow Ella down to her car, though my grin soon fades as we make our way through the busy streets of central London and soon find ourselves outside the modern-looking offices of Heavenly Talent. The presence of a bright pink London taxi in the parking spot next to ours does nothing to ease my tension as I follow Ella into the building.

"Wonder which one of them's here today," Ella muses, before giggling as she walks up to the reception desk. "Good morning, Ella!"

"Good morning, Ella!" The brown-haired receptionist says with a giggle of her own.

"That's not confusing at all," I say, earning yet more giggles from the two young women.

"Everything's ready for you in the studio," the receptionist says, earning a smile from Ella- my Ella. "I'll let them know you're here. Have fun!"

"Oh, I will!" My Ella says before leading me through to the studio, where I'm greeted by an unexpected face.

"Oh, hi Ian!" Jacinta- one of the transgendered women who was on the photoshoot with me- says with a wide grin. "Didn't realise I'd be doing TWO sets of headshots today..."

"Umm, hi..." I say nervously. "I'm, umm, I'm just here with Ella..."

"Oh really?" Jacinta asks, making me blush as she winks at the two of us.

"Ian's been having a bit of a bad week, that's all," Ella says, rolling her eyes at the brown-haired woman's teasing. "Actually, it's something the two of you could probably talk about, umm, you know?" I try not to blush as a look of realisation spreads across Jacinta's face- it's obvious that her life has had just as many 'trials' as my own.

"Of course," Jacinta whispers. "First things first, of course, I'm not getting paid to sit around gabbing! And I REALLY want to impress Joshua this summer, hopefully land me a job for after I graduate..."

"Make me look extra-gorgeous and I'll put in a good word for you!" Ella giggles as she gives her make-up one long, final check before sitting on the stool that's been prepared for her.

"If only it was THAT easy," Jacinta retorted, making the Australian girl giggle.

Thirty minutes later, during which Ella's face is photographed from virtually every angle imaginable and with every facial expression imaginable, Jacinta declares the photography session done. I approach the brown-haired girl as she connects her camera to her laptop, hoping to talk about what happened with Hannah at the beach, but before I'm able to say a single word, we're interrupted by a sudden, very loud voice coming from the side of the room.

"Ella Henry!" The voice booms, momentarily startling the three of us. "I hope Jacinta is making you look as beautiful as you truly are!"

"Doing my best, boss!" Jacinta giggles, making the dark-skinned middle-aged man roar with laughter.

"To make Ella look beautiful is the easiest job in the world, you are lucky I even pay you at all!" The man says in a playful voice, before his grin widens as he sees me standing to one side. "Ah, Ian Freeman! I wondered when I would see you inside my building! Jacinta, get your camera ready, you have more photographs to take!"

"Oh, I-" I stammer, my whole body tensing up. "I'm- I'm not here to be a model, I'm- I'm just here with Ella..."

"What have you to lose?" The man asks with a chuckle. "I am not offering you a contract! Just let Jacinta take your photograph!" As the tall man speaks, I can almost hear my mother's voice say the exact same words. The same words when she took me to my first ballet class, to my first gymnastics competition, to my first commercial audition... On every occasion, I'd been too afraid to say 'no'. Now, I'm too afraid to say anything...

"Joshua," Ella whispers, leading the tall, intimidating man away from me to speak privately as I start to shiver with fear.

"Ian," Jacinta whispers, "are- are you okay?" Before I can answer, Joshua returns to me with a look of contrition on his face.

"I apologise for putting you on the spot like that, Ian," Joshua says in a quiet voice. "Please take this in case you change your mind." I force a smile on my face as the tall man hands me his business card, before turning to face Ella, his wide grin fully restored. "As for you young lady, you had better be ready for tonight!"

"Go team everyone but England!" Ella cheers, making herself and Joshua laugh as Jacinta playfully boos them.

"I shall see you both tonight," Joshua says to Ella and Jacinta, before subtly smiling at me and leaving the studio.

"Ian..." Jacinta says with a look of real concern on her face. Are- are you alright? You looked like you were going to pass out..."

"I probably was, heh," I sigh, slumping heavily into a nearby chair.

"I've NEVER seen Joshua back down like that, ever," Jacinta says. "What- what did you say to him, Ella?"

"Erm..." Ella grimaces as she looks at me, clearly looking for my permission to speak.

"It's okay," I whisper hoarsely.

"Ian..." Ella says quietly. "Kinda... Kinda doesn't have a great relationship with his parents. They were, like, TOTAL stage moms. Pushed him completely into being a celebrity, like, a model, or an actor- actress- whatever. Really did a number on him, you know, mentally... Did- did I get it right?"

"Apart from one thing," I spit. "Only my mum is a 'stage mom'. My dad is basically a lump of flesh occupying space and not doing much else."

"Shit, that sounds AWFUL," Jacinta sighs. "I'm so sorry to hear that."

"That's why it makes me tense just being here," I sigh. "I know that if I took up Joshua's offer, I'd get my mum breathing down my neck yet again, even if I am just TALKING to him..."

"I promise my camera won't go anywhere near you," Jacinta says softly. "Though if you ever did want a career in front of the camera, Heavenly Talent really is the best agency in the country, especially for, you know, people like us..."

"Yeah, I'd heard that," I mumble. "I just- I just don't want to make mum think that she's 'won', you know?"

"I think I understand," Jacinta whispers. "Has she- has she been, you know... About your transition?"

"At first," I sigh. "Then I started hanging out with Ella, and going to your parties, and now all of a sudden it's like she's always had and loved having a son. I know I should probably be grateful, but still..."

"No, you've got every right to be pissed off about that," Jacinta says softly. "Didn't even know it was possible to be a 'fair weather parent'..."

"If she accepts me when I'm watching Star Trek and playing board games with my friends, THEN I'll talk to her. Not before."

"I don't mean anything by this," Jacinta says hesitantly, "but- but it just seems so weird that you being transgendered ISN'T the major sticking point of that relationship, you know?"

"Oh trust me, no offence taken," I say with a snort of laughter. "I've got enough rejection THERE from my family too... Not to mention from every other part of society, heh."

"I've heard that FtMs often have it as bad as MtFs," Jacinta says softly. "Sometimes find that hard to believe, you know, 'cause you guys pass better than us girls, but still..."

"But still, no one should have to go through shit like this just to be the person they truly are inside," Ella says, making myself and Jacinta smile.

"You- you know Stuart, don't you?" Jacinta asks. "Stuart Milton?"

"Yes..." I reply. "We message each other occasionally, why?"

"Seems like he's the best person to speak to about this sort of thing," Jacinta shrugs. "He'll be at the match tonight-"

"Yeah, I- I know, thanks," I interrupt, trying my best not to sound irritated with the young woman.

"...Okay then," Jacinta says with a grimace. "Guess I'll see you two there, then!"

"Yep!" Ella says with a forced grin as she leads me out of the studio, before letting out a long sigh.

"I wasn't trying to be rude to her, honestly," I mumble.

"I know," Ella sighs- though despite her words, she's still clearly irritated with me. "You know who that guy was, right?"

"Joshua Benedict, right?" I reply. "Manager of Heavenly Talent?"

"OWNER of Heavenly Talent," Ella says with a quiet chuckle. "You've basically just been given the business card of a guy with a net worth of about £50 million."

"He's THAT rich?" I ask, trying to wrap my head around how earning that much money is even possible in one lifetime.

"Why d'you think he can afford to buy a football club?" Ella giggles. "Come on, want to get some lunch, I need to be at the ground early this afternoon."

"To warm up?" I naively ask.

"To not miss any or the pre-match publicity!" Ella laughs. "The match is being streamed live on the internet, there'll be a lot of press there..."

"Silly me," I mumble as I follow Ella to lunch, where she naturally doesn't stop talking about the match and the potential boost it could be to her career.

After lunch- with Ella still enthusing about the match- we head out toward the west of London, and the football ground where the teams will be playing tonight. Naturally, the second we arrive, we're pestered by photographers and reporters, and despite hiding my face underneath my trusty Arsenal cap, I still feel my tension almost reach boiling point once we're inside the ground.

"Well, got to love you and leave you here," Ella giggles. "Only GIRLS allowed inside the changing rooms, hehe!"

"Yeah," I mumble. "Umm, where- where are, umm, you know..."

"The men?" Ella asks with a giggle. "Probably up in the stands somewhere, talking to the club's ACTUAL players before we all have our photos taken with them, probably. I'll see you after the game, okay?"

"Sure," I say, smiling as Ella disappears into the loud changing room and I walk through the cramped corridors toward the stands.

As the stadium is small- only having a capacity of 8000- it's not hard to spot the group of men walking around the stands with the kitted-out players. I try to remain quiet as I walk up to the back of them, which should be an easy task given that I'm 5' 7" and most of them are over six feet tall, but as I approach the back of the group, my presence is almost immediately noticed.

"Oh, hey Ian!" A tall man with a beard and a ponytail says with a wide grin. "Stu! Your 'Nikki's here!" I try not to blush at the unusual nickname I've apparently been given as my 'mentor' approaches me and shakes my hand.

"Hi Ian!" Stuart says, trying (and failing) not to sound awkward. "When'd you get here?"

"Just now," I say. "Came up with Ella." This time, the murmurs of approval this gets me from the other men does cause me to blush.

"I bet," Stuart laughs. "Hate the hat by the way."

"Oh, piss off, Stu," one of the other men- a tall, dark-skinned man- laughs.

"I will do if you ever win anything," Stuart retorts, before turning back to my now hatless face. "Thought you weren't coming down for the game?"

"Last minute change of plans," I shrug. "Kinda needed to get out of Cardiff for a while, there- there was kinda a, umm, incident..."

"This sounds like a sensitive thing," the man with the ponytail says to the rest of the group. "You two take a seat, you can catch us up if you want to chat."

"Sure," Stuart says, leading me to a seat and sitting me down. "So... Wassup?"

"It's not my you know what starting again, so you don't need to look so scared," I say, making my 'mentor' laugh. "Testosterone's definitely agreeing with me, heh."

"I can tell," Stuart laughs, pointing at my bulging biceps. "I never got mine that big. Then again, I was only lifting a guitar, rather than lifting weights, heh."

"That's not the only thing I'm, well, 'picking up'," I chuckle. "Or at least, trying to..."

"Girl trouble, then?" Stuart asks. "I thought you and Ella were getting serious?"

"Oh- no, no no," I reply. "Far from it, we're still, you know, casual, friends with benefits... So I'm looking at other girls, one in particular catches my eye. A really, really cute girl with ginger hair, freckles, pale skin, she's a lot shorter than me, which is an advantage over Ella..."

"Don't need to ask what happened next, do I?" Stuart grimaces, sighing as I shake my head and try to suppress both tears and a frustrated scream. "Mate, I wish I had decent advice for you. There'll always be shitheads out there. But not every girl in the world is a shithead. You might get lucky- so to speak- with the next girl you ask out. She may even be THE one. Unlikely, I know, but you can't let one setback turn you into a monk."

"I know that, I do," I sigh. "But I'm, you know, 'played one, lost one'."

"There are ways around that," Stuart says. "If you're that desperate, use a dating app or something. Hell, there are even dating apps for transgendered people. Even for geeky trans people. I'm surprised that wasn't more of a turn-off than being trans, if I'm being blunt."

"Actually the girl was a huge geek," I half-laugh, half-sigh. "Huge Doctor Who fan, even came into my game shop to buy Pokemon cards."

"Ah, I used to collect those," Stuart laughs. "Didn't know they still made those. Anyway, we're getting off-topic. Don't let one 'loss' get you down, no matter how much it hurts. You'll have better, and you'll have worse. And correct me if I'm wrong, but last night, you DID have sex with an 18 year old six foot tall underwear model, didn't you?"

"Well- yes," I sigh.

"And I'm guessing it was her you came to London to see and not me, right?" Stuart asks.

"Again, yes," I say, making the older transman snigger.

"Sounds to me then that you're doing okay," Stuart shrugs. "I reckon you and Ella could be REALLY good together if you got serious."

"Yeah, well, that's not going to happen," I sigh. "She lives here in London, I live in Cardiff..."

"You could always come to live here," Stuart shrugs. "For university if nothing else. I lived away from home for uni, loved just about every second of it. AND I met plenty of, you know, 'accepting' girls as well. And another major plus side is that you'll have a ready-made 'adopted family' that you can slot into seamlessly."

"...I dunno," I sigh. "It's not that easy, I mean, my mother, my grandmother... Ugh. Sometimes feels like I live two lives as it is, my Cardiff life and my London life... I've only just got over living two lives- one male, one female..."

"I understand," Stuart shrugs, standing up and leading me back to the main group. "You have to transition in your own way, that's perfectly understandable. I'll always be just a Facebook message away anytime you want to chat, mate. And I promise no one's going to try to induct you into the 'Order of the Halo' or anything, heh."

"Thanks," I whisper. "Still dunno if I'm going to, you know, get the 'Fellowship' tattoo when I'm eighteen... Kinda feel like I should, but- I dunno."

"Don't feel pressured to do anything you don't want to," Stuart says. "That's good advice for anyone trans or cisgendered."

"Yeah," I laugh as I gaze down at the various celebrities having their photographs taken on the pitch.

"On that note though, but I definitely owe you thanks for pointing me to Pandemic Legacy," Stuart says with a grin. "Just finished that last month. Had LOADS of fun, heh."

"Oh, was it you who pointed us to Pandemic?" The man with the ponytail asks, smiling as I nod. "Oh, mate, thanks for that, me and Krys loved every second!"

"You and- and Krys?" I ask. "Krystie Fullerton? The Angel?"

"My fiancée, soon to be the mother of my child, yes," the man with the ponytail laughs. "What, just 'cause she's a model, dancer and celebrity, it means she can't enjoy a board game?"

"Hannah Dexter played every round of it too," Stuart says. "She got REALLY into it."

"Wish my mum knew that, her head would probably explode," I say, earning laughs from the rest of the men as we head back to the lounge to wait for the start of the match, where I quickly find myself lost in thought.

Maybe London isn't such a bad option after all? Sure, my original 'clique' was intolerable. Georgie was a total airhead, Brooke was little better, Abbey-Gayle was ego and ambition personified and Ella... Sometimes I wonder whether Ella and I would be as 'compatible' as Stuart seems to think we would be. She certainly wouldn't play a board game, no matter how much celebrity endorsement it has. Whatever I feel for her, I'll always have to wear a 'mask' around her, and I've had enough 'masks' to last me a lifetime. I can really kick back and relax around the guys in Cardiff, and grandma will always support me, strict as she can be at times.

But no one in Cardiff can offer me the specialised support I can get here in London. And no girl in Cardiff will even touch me, let alone do what Ella and I regularly do, that's for certain. As testosterone changes my body more and more, I become more and more 'active' in bed, and I know Ella's more than satisfied with my 'performances'. I even have a 'big brother' in London... But I also have other family in London. Family I ran away from and didn't look back. Maybe my mother is sincere in wanting to get to know her son, though. Maybe it is me she's interested in, rather than my media profile. Maybe she will meet my 'conditions' and I'll get the best of both worlds after all. Like Stuart says, just because Hannah rejected me, it doesn't mean that every girl in the world is going to be as bigoted as her, and just because my mum was initially angry at my choice to transition, it doesn't mean she's so closed minded that she'll reject me forever- even despite the evidence of the last seventeen years of my life...

The actual football match, when it starts, proves to be a welcome distraction from my life, especially as 'rest of the world' ends up winning 2-0, giving me a chance to gloat over the other men, all but two of whom are purely English. Ella giving me a 'victory kiss' (and the promise of much more) before getting changed certainly puts a smile on my face, and for the first time in a very long time, I feel wholly relaxed as I head out into the car park with my mentor and my new friends... Only to freeze with tension when I look across the car park and see the one face I was not hoping to see today.

"Hello, Ian!" My 'mother' says, a wide grin on her face as she approaches me. Obviously one of the plastic celebrities she follows tweeted my picture, or something...

"What are you doing here?" I say, recoiling with fear.

"I'm here to see you, of course!" Mum lies. She's obviously only here to see me interact with the celebrities. "Have you been making friends today?"

"Come straight out and ask it, then," I say in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

"What do you mean?" Mum asks, her fake happiness quickly making way for her usual facial expression of barely-restrained contempt.

"The last time you saw me," I growl, "you tried to get a judge to force me to return to London and go back to living as a girl!" I try not to shudder as this revelation draws the interest of many in the car park- including my mentor.

"...Well I've seen the error of my ways," mum says, though her smug tone of voice betrays her obvious lie.

"You've seen me socialising with celebrities, more like," I spit. "When I go home- HOME- to Wales, I'm going to crash on the sofa, eat a microwaved burger and watch four back to back episodes of Star Trek on Netflix. Still want to see me?"

"Good question," Stuart says, standing next to me with his arms crossed as a look of pure fury flickers in my mother's eyes.

"...Yes," mum mumbles in a voice I can barely hear.

"Then I'm going to make a call to my friends and we're going to play Dungeons and Dragons," I say, trying not to smile smugly as mum shudders with anger. "And I won't come back to London for a while, at least two weeks. Still interested?"

"Yes," mum says, and I can't help but roll my eyes at her obvious lie.

"No, no you're not," I spit. "You're only here tonight because you think that I'm suddenly going to become an Angel, or a famous model, or an actress, that I'm going to come crawling back to you and let you live the rest of your life off my 'fame'. Well guess what? Earlier today, Joshua Benedict himself offered me an audition to become one of his models."

"That- that's great!" Mum beams, making me growl with frustration.

"And I turned him DOWN," I say proudly.

"You- you what!?" Mum snaps, her anger finally out in the open for all to see.

"I said 'thanks, but no thanks'," I say. "Everything you want for me, I. DON'T. WANT. Ever since I was born you've treated me less like your child and more like your pet project!"

"How dare you!" Mum growls, advancing on me with a look of pure fury on her face, only to stop when Stuart and several of his friends- male and female- stand beside me. "You're a fine one to talk! You're not really transgendered, you're only using it as an excuse, some childish attempt to hurt me! Well I know what's best for you, Kayleigh-Ann! Whether you're a boy or a girl, you will come home and do as you're told!"

"Now your true colours come out," I spit. "I'm going home. TO CARDIFF! Where I belong, far away from you!"

"How dare you speak to me like that, after all I did for you as a child!" Mum growls. "All the acting lessons, all the dance lessons, all the money wasted!"

"WOW," an unexpected voice interrupts, and I turn my head to see the unexpected sight of Charlotte Hartley- probably the most famous person here tonight- standing next to me, shaking her head. "Just- wow."

"...Well, that's easy for you to say, you're a millionaire," mum mumbles, clearly uncomfortable arguing with someone she views as her 'superior'.

"It's easy for me to say," Charlotte says, "because I'm a mother. And if my son grows up to be half as good a person as Ian, then I will consider myself to have been a success as a mother."

"But you can spend whatever you like on your son, money means nothing to you!" My mother pleads.

"Being a parent isn't about how much money you spend," Charlotte says. "It's about how much love you give your child. How much unconditional love."

"And it seems to me," Stuart interjects, "that your love for Ian is VERY conditional."

"She could have been so much," mum says, tears flowing from her eyes.

"HE could've been so much," Stuart says. "HIS name is Ian, and HE is a boy. No- HE is a MAN."

"Mmph," mum moans, holding her hand to her forehead in a way that makes me boil with rage. "See what you've done, Kayleigh-Ann?"

"I think you should go now," Charlotte says, her and Stuart each placing a supportive hand on my shoulders. Silently, mum returns to her car and drives away, and the second she goes, I bend double, almost hyperventilating with stress.

"Let it out, mate," Stuart whispers, leading me to his car and sitting me in the passenger seat.

"If you need to cry, then you cry," Charlotte whispers, and I don't need to be told twice.

"I- I want to go home," I sob.

"We'll get you back to Ella's, mate," Stuart says softly.

"No, I-" I say, before letting out a long, pained sigh. "I want to go back to Cardiff. Now."

"...Can't exactly drive you there," Stuart says with an awkward chuckle. "But do- do you want me to drop you at the station? Are trains even running this late?"

"Last one leaves at half eleven," the tall man with the ponytail says softly. "Plenty of time. I can run him there in my van, no problem."

"No, it's okay," Stuart sighs, getting in the driver's seat of his car. "Can you run Jamie home, please? I'm sure she'll understand."

"Sure, mate," the ponytailed man whispers as Ella comes running up to the car.

"Ian?" Ella asks. "What's going on? Why are you in Stuart's car?"

"I- I need to go home," I moan. "I- I'm not sure I'll be coming back anytime soon."

"But- but my birthday's in two weeks-" Ella protests.

"Goodbye, Ella," I sniffle as Stuart drives away from the football stadium and the stunned crowd.

"I know you don't want to hear anything right now, mate," Stuart says, "but don't be too hasty there. You really, truly can never have too many friends."

"But only if they genuinely like me for who I truly am," I retort. And god knows, I think to myself, Ella's a lot more like my mum than she is like Rob, Neil or Lee...

After picking up my suitcase from Ella's grandmother- who is of course concerned by my sudden departure- Stuart drives me to Paddington station, where I while away the rest of the night waiting for my train, wondering whether or not I could have done anything differently, or said anything differently to my mum.

It's almost 3am by the time I arrive home, but grandma is still awake (albeit in bed) when I walk through the front door, surprising me with a stern look on her face.

"G- grandma?" I ask.

"I had an interesting phone call earlier in the night," grandma says. "From your mother."

"...She told you what happened, then?" I ask.

"She told me her side of what happened," grandma sighs. "I don't doubt she exaggerated some parts."

"Probably exaggerated most of it," I spit, shrinking as grandma regards me with an angry scowl.

"Get some sleep, Ian," grandma says. "We'll talk in the morning. Assuming you've calmed down enough, of course."

"Yes, grandma," I mumble as I head through to my bedroom, change into my pyjamas and climb into bed, my stuffed giraffe's leg clamped firmly between my teeth as I cry myself to sleep.

Why is it, every time I think things are going well, I get set right back to square one?

“Free at last,” Lee says with a snort of laughter as I meet up with him, Rob and Neil at the end of another long week of college. “You got much work to do this weekend on your course?”

“Umm, not much,” I shrug. “Been getting a good head start the last few weeks.”

“Smart man,” Rob says with a chuckle.

“Just had plenty of free time lately,” I shrug, leading to an awkward silence as all of my friends know exactly why I’ve had so much free time lately.

It’s been just over two months since I attended the football match hosted by Heavenly Talent in London, and that date was also the last time I have set foot in the nation’s capital.

Immediately after I returned from London, I fell into a funk, drowning my sorrows in junk food and videogames for a whole week. I didn’t shower, I hardly changed my clothes, I barely spoke to my friends (in London or Cardiff) and I slept for at least fourteen hours each day (apart from days I was at work). Grandma, obviously, had a few things to say about this, but I wouldn’t be deterred, even- no, especially when my weight increased by half a stone and my face broke out in spots. I’d probably still be in my funk today, if it wasn’t for one remark, one simple sentence from grandma.

“You remind me of your mother when she was your age,” grandma said.

Within an hour, I’d shaved, showered, changed my clothes and was on my way to the gym to start to shed the extra ‘padding’ I’d gained as a result to my depression (it’s all gone now, thankfully). Within another 24 hours, I was back in my funk yet again when a notification came on my Facebook that I’d been dreading for months- ‘Ella Henry is in a relationship’. Within ten days of the last time we’d had sex, she’d met another guy- or had maybe even met him before we’d last had sex- started a relationship with him and was serious enough to take it onto Facebook. As much as I tried to remind myself that men are supposed to sleep around, that we’re supposed to go from girl to girl and not be tied down- especially when you’re the age I am- it still hurt, it still made me feel used and unclean… Especially as I didn’t have a girl of my own in Cardiff.

Or, at the very least, not a girl who wants anything to do with me. I started my second year of college in September and picked up from where I left off the previous year- unpopular due to my hobbies and my more obvious ‘status’ (I still feel anxious whenever I go into the men’s toilets) despite the fact that over a year on testosterone (which I wasn’t able to celebrate, thanks to my depression) has significantly changed my body. Stubble, hair on my legs and arms (and even a little on my chest), biceps, a six pack, tougher, rougher skin… Girls who don’t know ‘about’ me look at me with pure lust in their eyes. Girls who DO know about me look at me with disgust- none more so than one Miss Hannah Barnard. Her making my day at the beach a misery obviously wasn’t enough for her, as she has dropped into the game store where I work every. Single. Saturday since August, each time looking at me like I’m something she scraped off the bottom of her shoe. She never says anything, of course- she knows that any verbal abuse wouldn’t be tolerated by management, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling like a steaming pile of shit every time I serve her.

Fortunately, my friends have always been there to support me, even when I’ve been too miserable to be any fun. Our board game nights have continued uninterrupted, as have our videogame nights, and the guys have been sensitive enough to stop making jokes about ‘going down under’ after Ella got herself a new boyfriend- even Lee, for whom sarcasm is the biggest part of his diet. He’s even promised to let us know soon why we’ve been donating aluminium cans to him for the last several months. I am lucky that I have such good friends in Cardiff, as my ‘friends’ in London haven’t been quite as ‘open’. I wouldn’t expect them to be, of course, and I certainly wouldn’t expect them to come all the way to Wales just to see me, but what little contact I had with them prior to my last trip to London has dropped off considerably. The only person I still occasionally talk to- by way of Facebook messenger, of course- is Stuart, and the conversation always goes the same way. He asks me if I’m alright, I say yes, we talk about football a little (he supports Chelsea and I support Arsenal so we usually have a few strong words for each other), then the conversation gets really awkward, we say our goodbyes and repeat the whole thing a few weeks later. I’m pretty certain even these messages aren’t his idea, that he’s pushed into sending them by his wife, but he is at least making contact- some of the ‘friends’ I’d made in London don’t even have me as Facebook friends anymore. Tellingly, though, every transgendered friend I’ve made- up to and including the likes of Jamie-Lee Burke and Stephanie Abbott- still not only have me as a Facebook friend but regularly like the posts that I make.

One person who I haven’t had contact with, though, is my ‘mother’. Ever since our argument in the car park after the football game, she has remained absolutely silent, not contacting me or grandma once. This is undoubtedly upsetting grandma, and making me feel guilty too as I can help but feel responsible for the rift between the two of them, but it just proves the point that I made two months ago- that my ‘mother’ never cared about me as a person, that her attempts to reconcile with me were purely because she saw me associating with celebrities and wanted to leech off what little fame I was building. Now that I’ve turned my back on ‘fame’ and gone back to being an ordinary seventeen year old nerd, she unsurprisingly wants nothing to do with me. It’s telling that my counsellor in Cardiff, who almost always takes an impartial view and plays devil’s advocate a lot, agrees with me about my ‘mother’. Obviously, my ‘father’ hasn’t made contact either, but then again, he barely did when I was living with him. And the less contact I have with his mother, the better.

Unfortunately, with it being October, it means that December is just around the corner, bringing with it the double whammy of both Christmas- a time when I know there’ll be a massive argument with all members of my family- and five days later, my birthday, and not just any birthday, but my eighteenth- the most important birthday of them all. I will be an adult, legally free to do whatever I want. I can vote in an election, legally buy and drink alcohol, I can get a tattoo… I can also arrange a mastectomy with a hospital, or a hysterectomy, or a phalloplasty… These aren’t easy decisions, but they’re ones that will need to be made soon. As is deciding whether to go to university (my grades are good enough to make this an option), get a full-time job, find a place of my own… I have a lot of decisions ahead of me. I feel like I’m at a crossroads, but I have no idea which way to go, and no one to help me make any of my decisions.

“Hello, Ian!” Grandma says with a smile as I close the front door behind me and drop my bag onto the sofa, though despite my tiredness, I know better than to drop myself onto the sofa. “Weekend now, you know what that means!”

“No schoolwork,” I reply with a chuckle. “Housework, garden work and actual employed work, but at least no schoolwork.”

“All three of which you get paid for, so stop complaining,” grandma playfully chastises me. “And I’ll only need you to cut the grass and run the hoover around on Sunday so you’ll have plenty of time free to play your games with your friends.”

“Thanks,” I say with a grin, before heading through to the kitchen to help grandma prepare dinner- noting that it, like the washing-up and drying I’ll have to do after dinner, is a piece of housework grandma didn’t mention…

Fortunately, no further chores are sprung on me after dinner, leaving me free to jump into Lee’s father’s car when it arrives to take me to our traditional Friday night gaming session.

“Alright mate?” Lee asks as I slide onto the seat behind him. “Got any aluminium for me?”

“Hello to you too,” I snort in response, earning a chuckle from my friend’s father.

“In fairness he did say ‘alright mate’ first,” Mr. Charlton reminds me.

“Eh, fair enough,” I shrug. “And no, I don’t, and when ARE we going to find out what you’re doing with all our cans?”

“Very soon,” Mr. Charlton replies. “Trust me, a lot sooner than you think.”

“Finally,” I chuckle. “And I would have more cans but grandma’s not what you’d call a supermarket or a ‘brand’ person, she still prefers shopping at, like, independent butchers, market stalls, that sort of thing.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Mr. Charlton shrugs. “Frankly more people should be doing that rather than be reliant on Tesco or places like that.”

“Does create a lot of extra work though,” I sigh. “There’s, like, twice as much washing-up, three times as much rubbish to take out and six times as many shopping bags to cart home, and as grandma’s seventy-five and suffering from arthritis and I’m seventeen and covered in muscles, no prizes for guessing who gets to carry it. One thing about Tesco, they at least deliver.”

“So you’re half grandson, half maid, then?” Lee asks, laughing as I reach forward and give him a smack on the back of his head.

“You earned that one, Lee,” Mr. Charlton- who, obviously, knows my ‘status’- tells his son.

“I’m not suggesting you wear the uniform,” Lee retorts as the car pulls up outside Rob’s house and I slide over to allow him onto the back seat.

“Hi Rob,” I say to my friend, who smiles in response.

“We were discussing whether or not Ian should wear a maid’s uniform,” Lee says, laughing as his dad gives him a smack on the back of the head.

“I trust you quickly arrived at the answer ‘no’,” Rob says. “Got some cans in the bag, by the way.”

“Excellent,” Lee says. “Ian can clean them when we get to Neil’s.” Despite the insult, I’m forced to chuckle as Rob gives Lee his third smack on the head in as many minutes.

“Seriously, not funny,” I snort. “Especially as Abbey-Gayle actually chose that exact costume for her boyfriend’s birthday party a few months ago.”

“Lucky him,” Lee says.

“Lucky ME,” I retort. “There but for the grace of god…”

“Guess we’ll have to change the theme for your eighteenth next month then, Lee,” Mr. Charlton says to his son, earning genuine laughs from myself and Rob.

“You can laugh about it when I’m the butt of the joke, then?” Lee asks.

“If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out,” I remind my black-haired friend. “And no, I don’t mind the odd joke. Sometimes need to remind myself that none of you ever met ‘Kayleigh-Ann’.”

“And we’re not in any rush to,” Rob says. “In fact, we don’t want to, ever. We like Ian, full stop.”

“Get a room,” Lee says, laughing as yet another smack finds its way to the back of his head.

“Neither of us are gay, we’re both only interested in girls, end of story,” Rob retorts, flashing a kind smile at me that helps to calm my nerves. I often get ‘reminders’ like this- that the guys unquestionably accept me as one of them- and sometimes they can feel patronising, as the guys aren’t exactly the most sensitive people in the world. On other occasions, such as this one, they really do settle my nerves and make me feel like I have a place where I truly belong- something ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ never had.

Many places, in fact- which I’m reminded when the three of us enter Neil’s bedroom and I’m handed a can of Coke Zero (I’m still eager not to put any weight back on) and an Xbox controller. Of course, this is the same thing that happened whenever I went to Ollie’s house, but unlike then, I know that my friends are genuine- and more importantly, I don’t have to stop being ‘Ian’ at the end of the night.

“Remember to s-“ Lee begins.

“Yes, we’ll save the bloody cans!” Neil interrupts, making me snort with laughter and nearly shoot cola out of my nose.

“Apparently we’re going to find out REALLY soon what all the cans are in aid of,” I say. “And Lee’s dad is as involved as Lee himself.”

“Probably a bit more involved, actually,” Lee shrugs. “Surprised none of you have figured it out yet.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Rob says. “If it is what I think it is, then it’s definitely something I want a part of…”

“Care to clue the rest of us in?” Neil asks.

“Does this ‘project’ involve the numbers three, two and one in that order?” Rob asks.

“Give that man some kudos,” Lee says with a smug grin that only confuses me and Neil further.

“Do you have a name yet?” Rob asks.

“We’re thinking ‘Chwilen’,” Lee says.

“Welsh for beetle,” Rob says.

“Yep,” Lee says with a smirk. “We were originally thinking ‘Draconis’ or ‘Draconid’ to make it even more, you know, ‘patriotic’, but all the good dragon-related names were taken.”

“…Any more clues?” I ask.

“Tell you what- get round to mine tomorrow after your job and I’ll show you,” Lee says. “Might even have a practical demonstration depending on how much I can get finished tomorrow morning. I will guarantee one thing, though- it’ll definitely put a smile on your face!”

“I’ll hold you to that,” I say, making Lee snort with laughter as a knock comes from Neil’s bedroom door.

“Ah, speaking of ‘holding’ and ‘putting smiles on faces’…” Lee teases, laughing as Neil throws him a packet of crisps that hits him square in the middle of the face, before standing up and opening the door to his bedroom.

“Hey babe,” Neil says with a smug grin as he exchanges a brief kiss with the petite eighteen year old girl stood in the doorway. “Sorry my room’s a bit, well, ‘manly’ today…”

“Nothing manlier than videogames about cars,” the girl teases, casting an awkward glance in my direction before making herself comfortable on Neil’s bed.

“You knew what you were getting into when you agreed to go out with me,” Neil says with a smug grin as he sits on the end of his bed and lets his girlfriend rest her feet on his lap.

“Even if there’s not much ‘out’ in our going out,” Neil’s girlfriend retorts.

“Oh- you know I can’t into anywhere without ID,” Neil sighs. “Five months, then I’ll be eighteen and we’ll be out every night you want, I promise.”

“Should’ve gone out with me instead,” Lee laughs. “Eighteen next month, the oldest of the four of us, in fact.”

“Umm, yeah, no,” Neil’s girlfriend snorts.

“Kaboom,” I say, laughing as Lee gives me a not-very playful shove- unsurprisingly, he’s the only one of the four of us to have not yet been in a relationship, and he’s a little sensitive about it. Assuming you count me and Ella as a ‘relationship’, of course…

“Best behaviour, boys, there are ladies present,” Neil says, before stammering as he realised his faux pas. “Umm, A lady present, I mean, umm…”

“Game on,” I order, silencing the room- though the dirty look I get from Neil’s girlfriend through our first gaming session speaks volumes. The question I don’t answered, though, is whether she dislikes me because I’m a nerd, because I’m transgendered, or worst of all, because she’s scared I want to steal Neil from her…

Unsurprisingly, with Neil’s girlfriend in the room and growing increasingly agitated, we cut the gaming session shorter than usual to allow our friend a little ‘private’ time, though as we leave, my tension levels rise again as we run into yet another young woman.

“Hi BOYS,” Rhiannon- Neil’s sister- says with a smug grin.

“Hi Rhiannon,” Lee- who has an obvious crush on the older girl- replies with what I assume is meant to be a confident smirk, but is definitely anything but confident.

“Smooth,” Rob says as the twenty year old woman heads into her bedroom.

“Yeah, she wants me,” Lee says with a shrug.

“About as much as she wants a vindaloo enema,” Rob retorts. “And she already has a boyfriend. And besides, you wouldn’t have enough time for girls if ‘Chwilen’ is what I think it is.”

“There’s always time for girls,” Lee retorts.

“As long as you don’t, say, drop everything and head to London at the snap of the girl’s fingers,” I muse, making both of my friends bite their lips.

“…Meh, I probably still would be doing if it was me,” Lee shrugs. “Then again, lady parts are my kryptonite, so yeah.”

“Which explains why you’re not dead, then,” Rob says, laughing as Lee gives him another not-quite-playful shove on the way to our lift home.

Before heading to bed, I switch on my phone to check Facebook and roll my eyes when the first story on my news feed is a picture of Neil and his (for once, smiling) girlfriend. The next picture beneath that is a photo of my friends Nikki and Sarah partying at a nightclub, and the one beneath that is a picture of Ella wrapped around her new boyfriend… And that’s enough to make me switch off my phone, climb into bed and swear off of Facebook for the next hundred years.

Despite the following morning being Saturday, I’m still awake early to shower and shave off what little facial hair I have, before getting dressed in my work uniform and heading downstairs to help grandma make breakfast.

“Good to see you shaved off that fuzz,” grandma says as I enter the kitchen. “Don’t want your employers thinking you’re a scruff now, do we?”

“To be fair, most of my colleagues have beards,” I reply. “Though to be fair, most of them are ACTUAL beards…”

“And so is yours,” grandma reminds me. “But blond men never suit beards, and neither do you. Even if it does, well, hide the, umm, shape of your face…”

“…Maybe I’ll dye my hair brown,” I shrug. “You don’t really see many men with hair my colour anyway...”

“It’s your hair,” grandma shrugs. “What little there is of it! And if you want to pay for it, it’s your money too.”

“Something to think about for next year, maybe,” I say with a smile as I sit down and tuck into my bacon sandwich.

As I head to work, though, I can’t help but stroke my now-hairless chin and reminisce on how many times when I was younger I’d wished to be able to actually feel genuine hairs growing out of it. Grandma was right when she said that my beard was real. It’s hair growing out of my face, which makes it as real as my colleagues. Even if it is thinner and patchier in places than theirs. And certainly slower growing. But the important thing is that it DOES grow.

And, as seems to be the theme for recent times, the main thing on my mind is how most of the girls at college or the girls who come into the shop seem to like guys with a bit of stubble…

“Morning!” Dean says as I walk into the store, drop my coat and bag in the back room and log onto the register. “Expecting a quiet one today, it’ll be really busy next week with the new WWE game though.”

“Looking forward to it already,” I laugh. “Dean, quick question…”

“Shoot,” Dean says.

“What’s the policy on facial hair again?” I ask, laughing as my supervisor rubs the scratchy black hair on the side of his face.

“Well my personal policy is ‘the more, the better’,” Dean laughs. “We’re a game store, mate, not Lord Sugar’s boardroom.”

“Thought so,” I say. “Just my grandma has been on at me to shave more often, because she says beards don’t suit me because, umm, I’m, you know, blond…”

“You don’t have to worry about it here, mate,” Dean says. “As for blond men not suiting beards, has she never heard of Chris Hemsworth? Or Chris Evans, for that matter?”

“She’s in her seventies, she probably hasn’t even heard of Chris Evans the ginger,” I retort. “Let alone the Captain America one.”

“Heh, harsh, I like it,” Dean chuckles. “Yeah, don’t worry about being clean-shaven, mate. Besides, girls like a bit of stubble. And no offence, but I- I’d have thought that, you know…”

“I should be grateful just to be able to grow a beard at all?” I ask. “Believe me, I am. I sometimes feel sympathetic for MtF transsexuals, you know? We’ve both got difficulty ‘passing’, this damned bandage around my chest is proof of that, but you look at someone, see stubble and think ‘definitely male’ without a second thought never mind if they’re wearing a shirt or a dress. And if they’re wearing a dress, well, god help them… Reckon if I lost my mind and pulled on a dress, I would have a hard time passing. Kinda like that, actually…”

“Can imagine,” Dean laughs, before grinning as our first customer of the day enters the store.

As always, Saturday proves to be busy. A new Mario game came out yesterday for the 3DS and the new Forza game (that I was playing last night) came out for Xbox earlier in the week so a lot of people have come in to pick it up and there’s the usual crowd of people picking up merchandise and trading in old games. Just before lunch, however, is the time of the week I’ve come to dread.

“Hi,” Hannah mumbles as she places two packets of Pokémon cards on the counter for me to scan.

“Hi,” I mumble, trying not to frown as Hannah visibly shudders at the sight of me touching her merchandise. “That’s £6.98, please.” The rest of the transaction passes in silence as Hannah hands me her money, and with a deep scowl, leaves the store with her cards. As always, I let out a long sigh and try not to let my emotions get the better of me as Dean slides up next to me and places a soothing hand on my shoulder.

“Take your lunch now, mate,” Dean says, taking over at the till as I head to the back room to eat… Which I only do once I’ve let off steam by kicking an empty cardboard box around the store room.

It’s not like we’re the only videogame shop in Cardiff. We’re not even the only shop of this chain in Cardiff. And there are a million other places that sell Pokémon cards. And yet, every Saturday, like clockwork, that red-haired bitch comes into my shop- MY shop- purely to sneer in my face and make me feel like dirt. And that’s just it- she makes sure she doesn’t do anything that’d cause her to get banned from the store, she does just enough to get her ‘point’ across and no more. And obviously, with college commitments, I can’t NOT work on Saturdays. I try to put it behind me for the rest of my shift, and things like Rob and his brother dropping in to say hi definitely help, but as always, I have a frown on my face when I bid Dean farewell at the end of the working day.

“Think of it this way, mate,” Dean says, “at least she doesn’t come in on Sundays, heh.”

“Yeah, true,” I sigh. “See you tomorrow, mate.”

“Got anything planned for this evening?” Dean asks.

“Umm, yeah, actually,” I say, remembering Lee’s ‘invitation’ from yesterday. “Just going round a mate’s, says he has something that might cheer me up. Doubt it, but it’s worth a try, right?”

“That’s the spirit!” Dean chuckle. “See you tomorrow, mate.” I force a smile on my face as I wave at Dean, before leaving the shop and hopping on the nearest bus to Lee’s house, where Neil, Rob and even Rob’s brother Simon are already assembled in the dimming light of Lee’s back garden.

Lee’s back garden, much like Rob’s game room, is a nerd’s delight- but for very different reasons. The garden contains not one, not two, but THREE sheds, each of which contains countless numbers of tools, workbenches, old engine parts, antique lawnmowers and old motorcycles. Lee’s father is a mechanical engineer by trade, and seemingly spends every second of his free time tinkering with some bizarre machine. By far the most impressive part of the garden, though, is what I assumed at first to be a well, but is in fact a forge in which Lee’s father can smelt his own metal- undoubtedly the place where our aluminium drinks cans have ended up over the past few months.

“Hi guys,” I say to the other four teenagers. “Well, we’re all finally here…”

“Indeed,” Lee says with an incredibly smug grin. “Gentlemen, the waiting is over. And if this doesn’t put a smile on your face, I don’t know what will.”

“After the day I’ve had, I’ll need it,” I snort.

“Ah, another run in with the only ginger in the world more annoying than Chris Evans?” Lee asks, chuckling as I nod. “Well next time, just imagine her in front of THIS baby. Rob, you recording?”

“Ready when you are,” Rob replies, pointing his camera phone at one of the sheds in the garden.

“Then, without further ado,” Lee says, picking up an elaborate remote control device from a nearby table. “Three… Two… One… ACTIVATE.” I watch the shed intently as a loud whirring sound comes from inside, before jumping back in horror as the door literally explodes outwards, sending splinters and scraps of wood flying in all directions. Once the debris has cleared, sat where the door used to be is a massive metal machine, about the size of an end table, with a deadly-looking spinning metal blade on the front.

“Gentlemen,” Lee says, smiling like a proud father, “I give you… Chwilen.”

“It- it’s a robot!” Neil says in an awestruck voice. “Like- like Robot Wars!”

“That is exactly what it is,” Lee says, mercifully switching off the spinning blade and driving the robot around the garden a bit. “Me and dad have entered a few local competitions before but only with lightweight robots, fifteen or twenty kilos. This is our first heavyweight, one hundred and seven kilograms of spinning DEATH.”

“Aluminium armour, then?” Rob asks.

“Naturally,” Lee says. “Maybe not as strong as titanium but it’s lightweight, tough, thick and, most importantly, cheap. And there are a few layers of thermoplastic in there as well just for some extra strength.”

“How heavy’s the blade?” Neil asks.

“Twenty-two kilos,” Lee says with a smug grin. “Now THAT is steel, rather than aluminium. The extra weight packs a punch. Got the starter motor from an old Transit van powering it, with another one driving the wheels and two car batteries powering the whole thing.”

“She is a thing of beauty, mate,” Rob gushes. “Put the smile back on your face then, Ian?”

“Umm, a little,” I mumble. “Why- why exactly have you built this, again?”

“Umm, to destroy other robots,” Lee says with a chuckle. “You’ve seen Robot Wars, right?”

“Not really,” I say, trying to remember back to any time in the past when the four of us have gone to such an event.

“Oh mate, it is THE best TV show ever,” Lee says, causing my eyes to go wide.

“T- TV show?” I ask, earning confused looks from my friends.

“Yes…” Lee says. “We must have talked about it before, surely? Hosted by Dara O’Briain, BBC2?”

“Not something I remember watching,” I say. “So- so you’re going to go on TV with this?”

“WE are going to go on TV with this,” Lee says confidently. “I’m not hogging all the limelight for myself, even if I do deserve it!”

“Oh, mate!” Neil says with an excited giggle. “Can I have a go?”

“Wait your turn,” Lee says, laughing almost maniacally as he does a donut with his robot. “Si, your birthday’s next week, isn’t it? Want a go?”

“Hell yes!” The fourteen year old says, laughing as he takes the control from Lee, who instructs him how to drive the robot.

“Ah, this is fucking awesome!” Neil says, almost giddy with excitement. “Is this what you thought it was, Rob?”

“Had a hunch,” Rob shrugs. “Me and my dad have thought about building one before but we never really had the technical skills… makes sense when you think about it, Lee’s studying electronics, his dad’s an engineer, it’s the perfect combination!”

“Looks like the perfect robot, too,” Neil gushes. “That thing will SHRED anything that goes up against it!”

“I dunno, some of the recent robots have pretty tough armour… Hey, Earth to Ian?” Rob asks, snapping me out of my ‘trance’.

“Hmm?” I ask. “I’m listening!”

“Can’t believe you’ve never watched Robot Wars before,” Neil says, making me sigh and roll my eyes.

“I’ve only been- well, you know, for fourteen months,” I retort. “Got a lot of catching up to do.”

“Make Robot Wars the priority,” Neil practically orders. “Ah, this is awesome! We’re going to be on TV!” Yeah… I think to myself. ‘Awesome’ is not the word I’d use there…

“Hey, Ian!” Lee yells, calling me over to where he and Simon are stood with the robot.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“You do graphic design at college, right?” Lee asks.

“Yes…” I reply.

“Perfect,” Lee says with a smug grin. “As much as I love Chwilen, right now she is basically just a metal box on wheels. Do you think you could, you know, make her, you know… Pretty?”

“…Are you taking the piss?” I ask, prompting a genuinely shocked response from my friend.

“Wh- what?” Lee stammers. “No, honestly, mate, I- ah… Shit.”

“Yeah, even I spotted that one,” Simon says, nervously glancing at me. “Asking a transgendered man for tips on making something pretty, right?”

“Right,” I say. “But that’s not all. You know the history between me and my mum, right? The way she’s been pushing me into being the next Charlotte Hutchinson, or Katie Price? She’d love nothing more than for me to become a TV idol.”

“Maybe on a show like Love Island, or Big Brother,” Lee retorts. “She sees you on a show like Robot Wars her head’ll probably explode, I thought you’d appreciate that.”

“Well- maybe?” I say, racking my brains for a counter argument but being forced to agree that Lee actually has a point.

“And you’re the one who chose to study graphic design,” Lee reminds me. “The most memorable robots are either the ones that cause the most carnage, or have a memorable design. So if you have both, well, yeah.”

“O- okay,” I sigh. “I can design some decals for the side, I guess.”

“Can you do a team logo for t-shirts too?” Lee asks.

“Seriously?” I ask.

“Most teams have branded gear,” Lee shrugs. “I’d design the logo myself but, well, kinda busy designing the actual robot. And I want this to be a TEAM effort. I do the building, Neil and Rob can do a team website and computer stuff, you can do the graphics side of things.”

“Okay, sure,” I say. “Happy to help, I guess.”

“And you don’t have to be on TV if you don’t want to,” Lee says with a sigh. “Me and the other guys can hog all the limelight instead!”

“Good,” Simon- who’s still happily driving the robot around the garden- says.

“Though you can have a go at driving anyway if you want,” Lee says, rudely snatching the control out of the 15 year old boy’s hands and placing it in mine.

“Okay, no idea what I’m doing,” I say.

“Ever played Katamari?” Lee asks, smirking at the blank expression on my face. “Okay, A- you should, and B- controls are very similar. Two thumb sticks, one controls each wheel, forwards and backwards. Doesn’t get any simpler than that.”

“Okay, then,” I say, pushing the thumb sticks forward and trying not to giggle as the robot moves under my control. I steer it around for a few seconds and, much to my surprise, quickly get the hang of it. I find myself actually having to concentrate so as not to let out a girlish giggle as the robot does a donut, leaving tyre marks over Lee’s parents’ patio.

“You’re a natural!” Lee laughs. “One thing to remember though is that the controls will be reversed if the robot gets flipped upside down. Easy way to get around that is to think of the back of the robot as being the front. If you could do separate decals for the front and top of the robot I’d be grateful too.”

“Easy enough,” I shrug. “And is it likely to get flipped upside down? I thought you said this thing weighs over a hundred kilos? That’s, like, twice as much as I weigh!”

“You’d be surprised,” Lee laughs, before calling Neil and Rob over for their turn at the controls.

Naturally, Neil, Rob and even Simon leave Lee’s house with wide grins on their faces at the prospect of being on one of their favourite TV shows. I, on the other hand, am terrified. Lee’s probably right when he says that my ‘mother’ would have a fit if she saw me on a show like Robot Wars, but then again, it WOULD be TV exposure, and eventually she would calm down and use it as an excuse to persuade me to send my ‘profile’ to various talent agencies… Despite her words at the football game in August, I’m convinced that she’d accept me as her son if I was a male model, or an actor, or a TV personality like Steve Jones or someone like that. She’d much rather, of course, that I was a female model, or an actress, or a TV personality like Stacey Solomon or Charlotte Hutchinson… And she’s hardly the only person who thinks that.

I don’t know anything about the Robot Wars community, either the fans or the participants. I don’t know their typical ages or genders (though as it’s a nerdy thing I can hazard a guess), and most importantly of all, I don’t know how they’d react to having a transgendered person as part of their community. Obviously, this is a challenge that will face me my whole life- it faced me when I started college, when I started work, when I started attending the church I regularly go to, and I was accepted in all of those places- well, for the most part, anyway- but that doesn’t mean I’ll be accepted everywhere I go. Even the fact that most of the community are likely to be geeky like me isn’t any guarantee- Hannah is proof of that.

The one advantage I do have is that I have plenty of friends who understand my situation perfectly, and they’re all only a Facebook message away if I need them. Unfortunately, each message I send increases the chance of me gaining unwanted ‘fame’…

After a quick dinner, I spend the rest of the evening watching clips of old Robot Wars episodes on YouTube, and I’m forced to admit that it really does look like a lot of fun (even if it’s disappointing that Lister from Red Dwarf isn’t the host anymore). I’m not surprised to find that the roboteers are mostly male and ‘obsessive’ like Lee (and, I suppose, me) and the audience is full of kids, which leads me to believe that they wouldn’t have any ‘problem’ with me, but as always, there’s no guarantee. Worse yet, they may use me as an example of ‘diversity’ and I end up being even more famous than I would have otherwise…

I try to put any thoughts of robots and TV out of my head as I climb into bed, which isn’t easy when you’ve spent all evening thinking about it, so naturally when I wake up on Sunday morning, it’s literally all I can think about. This doesn’t go unnoticed as I walk downstairs in the smart shirt and trousers that make up my church clothes.

“Good morning, Ian!” Grandma says with a cheerful grin. “Sleep well?”

“Okay, ish,” I shrug. “Just got a lot on my mind after yesterday.”

“Oh yes, you were at your friend Lee’s, weren’t you?” Grandma replies. “You never did tell me what you got up to, just came home and jumped straight on your iPad…”

“Oh, umm, Lee’s built a robot,” I explain. “A fighting one, like on the show Robot Wars…”

“Oh,” grandma says with a surprised look- though that look quickly gives way for a happy grin. “How exciting! Has he applied to be on the TV show?”

“Umm, yep,” I reply, surprised by the old woman’s excitement. “Think he needs to, umm, qualify first…”

“Now that WILL be a fun adventure for the four of you!” Grandma says, actually letting out an excited giggle.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I say.

“What- what’s the matter, Ian?” Grandma asks, her face falling.

“I- ugh, I dunno,” I sigh. “I think ‘TV’ and I think ‘mum’…”

“Well that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” grandma says. “It’s not like you’d have to become a girl again to go on Robot Wars, or perform like on one of those Simon Cowell shows. Honestly, I’d be surprised if your mother has even heard of Robot Wars.”

“Well- yeah, but-“ I argue.

“Well, you don’t need to make a decision now,” grandma says. “Plenty of time to talk it over with your friends later. But now we don’t want to be late for church, do we?”

“…No,” I sigh as I follow grandma down to her car, which whisks us to the small inner-city church where we’ll be spending the next couple of hours.

The service goes the same as always- prayers are said, wafers and wine are consumed and Reverend Stubbs delivers a sermon, and at the end of the service, I shake hands with the young vicar as usual, but before we leave the church, grandma can’t help but share my ‘good news’…

“We might be seeing my grandson on a TV screen soon!” Grandma says with a proud grin, blissfully ignorant of the anxious grimace that’s spread over my face.

“Really?” Reverend Stubbs asks. “Anything I might watch?”

“Umm… My friend- that is, me and a few friends are applying for Robot Wars,” I mumble in response.

“Ro- Robot Wars?” Reverend Stubbs asks with the same surprised look grandma had on her face when I told her. And, much like grandma, his facial expression quickly changes to one of sheer delight. “I used to watch that when I was younger! Didn’t realise they were still making it.”

“Think they, umm, started making it again recently,” I mumble. Even him? I think to myself.

“Ah, well let me know when you’re on and I’ll keep an eye out for you!” The reverend says with an excited giggle as we head back to grandma’s car.

“Looks like you’ve got another fan, Ian,” grandma says with a grin, making me sigh as I buckle my seatbelt and we head into the centre of Cardiff. “Don’t be like that! I know it’s making you anxious, and I know why it’s making you anxious, but everyone you’ve told so far has been on your side. I’m excited for you, Reverend Stubbs is excited for you, your friends are obviously excited, as they’re the ones who are responsible for applying for the show! Everyone is behind you, Ian. There’s no need to be so anxious!”

“…I know,” I say, trying not to sigh. “I just- ugh, I dunno. Had so many setbacks lately, I- I-“

“You’re going to look a gift horse in the mouth?” Grandma asks. “There’s a difference between being cautious and being paranoid. You see this Robot Wars thing and all you see is an inevitable confrontation with your mother.”

“And articles in newspapers saying ‘look at the tranny and HER robot’,” I spit, momentarily silencing my grandmother.

“…If any so-called ‘journalist’ writes THAT headline I will sue them myself,” grandma says in a low voice that immediately tells me that she’s not bluffing. “But think of the positives that could come out of it. It could lead to GOOD publicity, it’s something to put on a CV, you will make new contacts, new friends… Might even meet a nice young woman, too.”

“…Really?” I retort. “From Robot Wars?”

“It’s not impossible,” grandma says with a smug smile as we pull up outside my place of work. “Do you have your work uniform with you?”

“Yeah, I’ll- I’ll change in the back,” I say as I jump out of the car, allowing grandma to head home.

Naturally, I muse on grandma’s words as I change out of my smart shirt into my company polo shirt. She’s undoubtedly right when she says that being on TV has countless positives attached to it, and probably the biggest would be ‘not letting my friends down’ over anything that grandma suggested. This is something Lee has clearly wanted for a long time, and I’m not going to stand in the way of his dream- after all, he’s always enabled my dream, something I realise when I stare down at the thin, soft hair growing in what I used to (reluctantly) call my cleavage.

“Alright mate?” Dean asks as I step out onto the shop floor and take my usual spot behind the till. “Should be quiet today, the weather and all that…”

“And everyone will still be indoors playing FIFA, hopefully,” I muse. “No doubt my grandmother would have a thing or two to say about THAT, people playing football on a screen indoors instead of playing it with a real ball down the park…”

“Hey, if it keeps money in our till, I’m not complaining,” Dean shrugs. “Though it is fun to, you know, get your hands dirty from time to time…” Like building a real-life robot instead of coding one into a computer game? I think to myself.

“Yeah,” I say, suddenly remembering grandma’s words about the support of friends. “Dean, do- do you watch Robot Wars?”

“I catch it if I can,” Dean shrugs. “Used to love it when I was a kid, when Craig Charles was the host. Why, you thinking of building a robot?”

“My mate Lee HAS,” I explain, chuckling and rolling my eyes as Dean lets out an excited gasp.

“Ah- seriously?” Dean asks. “Cool! What’s its main weapon?”

“Massive spinning blade at the front,” I reply. “Smashed the hell out of an old shed door last night. Think Lee might’ve put it on YouTube, I know he was having it recorded.”

“Sweet, I’ll see if I can find it,” Dean says, grabbing one of the store’s iPads and opening up YouTube. “Kinda naughty using company Wi-Fi for this but whatever. What’s the robot’s name?”

“Chwilen,” I reply. Within seconds, Dean has the video loaded on the iPad and is happily chuckling away at the sight of the metal machine tearing Lee’s garden to shreds.

“Ooh, yes, THAT will go far!” Dean laughs. “Excited by the prospect of being on TV, then?”

“Less than you’d imagine,” I sigh. “You know the history of me and my mum…”

“Ehh, that’s true…” Dean says with a grimace. “Ah well, I’ll take your place if you don’t want it, heh!”

“You- you’ll have to take that up with Lee,” I chuckle as the first customer enters the store.

The day goes as Sundays usually go- quieter than Saturdays, but still plenty of people coming in to buy games and accessories. Eventually, though, 3:55pm rolls around, and both Dean and I are about to breathe sighs of relief when the door opens and one last customer enters the store- and my nerves instantly fray when I see who it is.

“Seriously?” I whisper to my supervisor as the petite, ginger-haired girl browses the pre-owned games section. “I thought you said she didn’t come in on Sundays?”

“She usually doesn’t,” Dean sighs. “But it’s a free country, not like I can ban her…”

“I know,” I say. “Just have to be stressed for the rest of the day, I guess.” I force my usual neutral expression on my face as Hannah approaches my till- though instead of her usual scowl, today she has a sickeningly sweet smile on her face. She’s also wearing a lot more make-up than usual…

“Hi!” Hannah says with a girlish giggle, handing me a copy of Uncharted 3 for the PlayStation 3. “And, yes, I know, hehe!”

“Know… What?” I ask cautiously as Hannah reaches into her handbag.

“…My ID, of course!” Hannah giggles bashfully. “Good job you’re good looking, hehe!” I exchange a quick look with Dean, who is clearly as flummoxed as I am, before glancing down at Hannah’s student ID- and all of a sudden, things become a lot clearer.

“Chloe Morgan Barnard,” I read aloud. “Born 27th of February 2001.”

“Which makes me sixteen, which means I can buy this game,” the ginger girl- who, on closer examination, is obviously different to Hannah in a lot of subtle ways- says, handing me her money. “Did- ahh… Did you think I was my sister?”

“…She does come in here a lot,” I mumble.

“She is a TOTAL nerd,” Chloe snorts. “Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you, hehe!”

“It’s not her worst characteristic,” I spit, immediately grimacing as I realise I’ve not only insulted a customer, but a family member of my current customer. What happens next, though, comes as a total surprise to myself and Dean.

“Ugh, tell me about it,” Chloe spits. “You know, over the summer holiday, she went to the beach and got chatting to a guy, only to find out that he was transgendered?”

“Fancy that,” I say, grimacing again as Dean barely suppresses a snort of laughter.

“Like, he was born a girl, but now living as a boy,” Chloe continues. “Hannah went BALLISTIC, actually said she was going to accuse him of raping her. Probably would’ve done if I hadn’t pointed out that they were in the middle of a crowded beach and she’d have had a really hard time trying to prove it.” My stomach churns at the thought of facing a criminal charge as severe as rape, even if, as Chloe says, the charge would’ve been impossible to prove- the mere accusation would’ve undoubtedly destroyed my life…

“Does- does she ever talk about, you know, him?” I ask.

“Not really,” Chloe shrugs. “She’s always been, you know, ‘wrong in the head’ like that… She HATES gay people, thinks they’re disgusting, reckons all Muslims are terrorists, hell, she even admires that orange-faced arsehole in the White House!”

“So- so you’ve got no problem with, umm, LGBT people, then?” I ask, smirking despite myself as Dean gives me a playful elbow in my side.

“Would I be wearing this if I did?” Chloe asks, unzipping her raincoat and proudly displaying the ‘Out of Heaven’ t-shirt underneath. Slightly more noteworthy, however, is her necklace, which is shaped like a Star Trek chevron… “Got tickets to see them at Wembley Arena later in the month. REALLY looking forward to it, hehe!”

“Cool,” I say, trying to wrap my head around the idea that a girl might like Out of Heaven AND Star Trek- and remembering grandma’s advice not to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially as, unlike her sister, Chloe’s already stated that she has no problem with transgendered people. And she thinks I’m good-looking…

“It drives Hannah MAD, of course,” Chloe giggles. “Almost as mad as my Jeremy Corbyn t-shirt, hehe!”

“Yeah, I know someone like that,” I say, leaning forward onto the counter and grinning happily. “Though she’s my grandmother rather than my sister, heh.”

“Oh my god,” Chloe says, a look of delight creeping across her face. “I am SO calling her ‘grandma’ when I get home, that’ll drive her mad, hehe!”

“Heh,” I chuckle, my grin widening as Dean gives me another elbow in my ribs, reminding me that the shop has technically closed and I’m still here flirting with a customer. “Umm, you know, it’s kinda- kinda a small world, heh.”

“Why do you say that?” Chloe asks.

“Ian Freeman,” I say, extending my hand, which Chloe shakes with a confused look on her face. “Born ‘Kayleigh-Ann Walker’ just under eighteen years ago, and called a ‘freak’ by your sister just over two months ago.”

“Oh- you- no way!” Chloe giggles girlishly. “You- but you’re hot!”

“Thanks, you’re pretty cute too!” I reply, giggling as I earn a squeak of excitement from the ginger-haired girl.

“Ugh, I- I am so, SO sorry for my sister,” Chloe babbles. “She is SUCH a-“

“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I’ve met the better Barnard girl now, heh!”

“Hehe!” Chloe squeaks excitedly. Okay, I think to myself. Second time lucky…

“We- we, umm, we’ve got to close the shop now,” I say with an exaggerated sigh. “Do- do you, you know, want to get a coffee some time?”

“Sure!” Chloe almost immediately responds, making me giggle.

“Oh- cool!” I say, taking a scrap of paper from behind the till and a pen. “This is my Facebook page, add me when you, umm, want…”

“Will do!” Chloe squeaks, taking the web address and leaving the shop with an obvious spring in her step.

“And you didn’t even tell her about your robot,” Dean teases as he locks the door after Chloe, making me roll my eyes.

“First, it’s not MY robot,” I retort.

“…And second?” Dean asks.

“And second…” I say with a grin. “She is REALLY into me!”

“Hell yeah she is!” Dean laughs, giving me a firm pat on the back as we finish cashing up and locking up the store.

Naturally, I have a smile on my face as I walk through my front door, something that doesn’t go unnoticed by the other resident of the house.

“Good day at work, then?” Grandma asks.

“Definitely one of the better ones,” I chuckle.

“Your colleagues are excited about the robot, then?” Grandma asks. “I’m surprised you’re not over at Lee’s house playing with it some more.”

“Think he needs to work on it tonight, we’d just be in the way,” I say. “No, I- I kinda, umm, got talking to a- a girl, who, um, came into the shop…”

“Oh, okay,” grandma says. “Is she nice?”

“Mm,” I mumble in the affirmative. “She’s cute, she likes the same things I do… Though she is- do you remember when- when I went to the beach? That girl who insulted me?”

“I remember how miserable you were afterwards,” grandma says. “Don’t tell me it’s the same girl, or one of her friends?”

“…Sort of in the middle,” I sigh. “Her sister, younger sister I think.”

“Oh,” grandma says. “You know that won’t be fun when you go to meet her family.”

“Assuming we even end up going out,” I say.

“…But you DO want her to be your girlfriend, don’t you?” Grandma asks.

“…Yes, probably,” I reply. “Almost certainly, like I said, she’s cute, she’s-“

“Well I’m sure she’s very nice,” grandma says. “I would just be cautious if I were you.”

“Didn’t you tell me this morning not to look a gift horse in the mouth?” I ask, biting my lip as my question silences the elderly woman.

“…Yes I did,” grandma concedes. “But I also said that being cautious wasn’t the problem, being paranoid was. Though I am pleased to see the smile back on your face. Should’ve realised that the only thing that would do that would be a girl. Typical seventeen year old boy, heh.”

“Hardly ‘typical’, heh,” I snort.

“Does this girl think you’re ‘typical’?” Grandma asks, making me start to blush.

“…Maybe,” I mumble. “What- what’s for tea?”

“Roast beef, as usual,” grandma says. “You can come and help me with the vegetables. I trust that I don’t need to remind you of my rules regarding girls in this house?”

“You don’t, no,” I say, making grandma smile as she hands me a bowl of potatoes to peel. The ‘rules’ are, obviously, no sex under her roof (well, when she’s there, anyway) and the girl must leave before grandma goes to bed. However, there are no rules against me staying at the girl’s house (as proved by my short-lived relationship with Ella)- though as grandma pointed out, that’s not a very pleasant prospect when it comes to Chloe’s house…

After dinner- which is as delicious and filling as usual- I grab my iPad to watch more Robot Wars clips, and a smile quickly spreads across my face when I see the notification ‘Chloe Barnard has sent you a friend request’. Obviously, I approve the request, and mere seconds later my iPad pings to inform me of a new instant message.

‘Hey Ian,’ Chloe’s message reads. ‘Thanks for approving my request!’

‘You’re welcome,’ I reply with a ‘grinning’ emoji. ‘You at home>’

‘Yeah,’ Chloe replies. ‘My brother’s come round so I’m trying to avoid him.’

‘You got a brother and a sister?’ I ask.

‘1 brother, 2 sisters,’ Chloe replies. ‘All annoying in their own way. Matt is just as Nazi as Hannah, probably more even. Rosie looks up to Matt so she’s a pain too.’

‘Aww,’ I type with a ‘hugging’ emoji that Chloe immediately reciprocates. ‘Only child myself. Don’t even live with parents anymore, live with my grandma, parents didn’t react well to my coming out.’

‘Aww,’ Chloe types with another ‘hugging’ emoji that I happily reciprocate. ‘Your parents live in Cardiff too?’

‘London,’ I reply. ‘Dad works for a big company, mum spends his money and spends the whole day pretending she’s important. She was a serious ‘stage mom’.’

‘Sounds horrible,’ Chloe types with a ‘sad’ emoji.

‘It wasn’t fun,’ I type. ‘Much happier in Cardiff. More friends, genuine friends too.’

‘I can tell from your photos,’ Chloe types with a ‘winking’ emoji, which I reply to with a ‘blushing’ emoji, which earns a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji in return from my new friend.

‘There’s a lot of nerdiness in those photos,’ I type with another ‘blushing’ emoji.

‘Nerds are cool,’ Chloe types. ‘Some are even sexy!’ Yet more ‘blushing’, ‘winking’ and ‘sticking out tongue’ emojis are exchanged.

‘Even when playing Star Trek Attack Wing?’ I ask with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji of my own.

‘ESPECIALLY then,’ Chloe replies with a ‘grinning’ emoji. I start typing a response, but only get down a couple of letters when Chloe sends down another message- a much more urgent one than her previous one: ‘OMG!’

‘?’ I reply.

‘OMG!’ Chloe repeats. ‘OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!’

‘What’s up?’ I type, my panic levels rising at the ginger girl’s sudden outburst.

‘YOU KNOW STEPH ABBOTT!!!!!’ Chloe types, making me sigh and roll my eyes as she follows up her message with a photo from my page of me with the aforementioned singer.

‘We’ve met a couple of times,’ I type. ‘We did a photoshoot together for the Sunday Globe earlier in the year, we kept in touch on Facebook. I used to have a girlfriend in London so I’d go down from time to time, that sort of thing.’

‘Oh my god that is so awesome!!!!!!!!’ Chloe types. ‘OMG does that mean you’re one of the IX?’

‘The ‘IX’?’ I ask.

‘I remember seeing that Steph Abbott and Jamie-Lee Burke did a photoshoot with a few other transgendered people,’ Chloe types. ‘They all got a tattoo afterward like the Fellowship from LotR, did you get a tattoo too?’

‘Only seventeen, not allowed,’ I type with a ‘winking’ emoji. ‘But yes, I was one of that nine!’ I giggle as Chloe’s side of the conversation becomes a barrage of ‘shocked’, ‘grinning’ and ‘shaking with excitement’ emojis.

‘When you said you lived in London I was going to ask if you knew the Angels,’ Chloe types. ‘Figured that’d be too much of a stereotype lol.’

‘Not every transgendered person in London knows each other,’ I reply with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji. ‘Though if my mum had her way I’d probably already be Steph Abbott’s best friend.’

‘She pushed you hard, then?’ Chloe asks with ‘sad’ and ‘hugging’ emojis.

‘Put it this way- I’m the only 17 year old male Star Trek fan who works in a videogame store who knows how to do a grand jete,’ I type. ‘Whether I like it or not.’

‘My little sister does ballet,’ Chloe types with a ‘rolling eyes’ emoji. ‘Me and Hannah dropped it when I was ten but Rosie just got really into it, she is such a girly girl.’

‘Tbf from your photos you’re not exactly a tomboy,’ I reply, earning a ‘bashful giggle’ emoji from my new friend.

‘I do like fashion and make-up,’ Chloe replies. ‘Actually do fashion design at college, but I really like designing costumes more. Me and Hannah have sometimes gone to conventions dressed as TV show characters.’ I giggle at the ‘blushing’ emoji that follows Chloe’s message, wasting no time in replying with a ‘hugging’ emoji.

‘I do graphic design,’ I type, happy to finally be steering the conversation away from celebrities. ‘Probably applying to uni next year.’

‘OMG you should go to uni in London!’ Chloe types, making my heart sink- I know where this is going… ‘That way you can hang out with the Angels too! Then in 2019 I can go to uni in London and maybe you can introduce me?’ It’s all I can do not to let out a very loud, very long swear word at Chloe’s message. Here I was, thinking she was a sweet, nerdy, intellectual girl, when instead she’s another Georgie, superficial and celebrity-obsessed…

‘Maybe,’ I type.

‘Something wrong?’ Chloe asks after a brief pause, making me sigh. ‘Have I done something?’ Erm, yes, I think to myself.

‘It’s not like I’m BEST friends with the Angels or Out of Heaven,’ I type. ‘I don’t chat with them the way we’re chatting now, if you’re expecting to become part of their inner circle, you’re going to be disappointed.’

‘OMG do you really think that’s why I’m chatting with you?’ Chloe asks with an ‘angry’ emoji. ‘I didn’t even know you knew the Angels when I sent you that friend request!’

‘Sorry,’ I type with a ‘blushing’ emoji.

‘It just came as a surprise that I get chatting to a hot guy and find out they personally know one of my favourite bands,’ Chloe types, earning another ‘blushing’ emoji from me- which is exactly what my real face is doing too. ‘Most guys who were trying to hit on me and saw me wearing an Out of Heaven t-shirt would probably fire at me every photo they have of them with the girls.’

‘I don’t want to lean on that,’ I type. ‘I’m not famous, I don’t want to pretend that I am either. I can’t stand wannabes.’

‘You’re hardly a ‘wannabe’,’ Chloe types. ‘Though I get what you mean, I think- you’ve spent so much time being someone else, you want someone to like you for who you are?’

‘Exactly,’ I type, my ‘smiling’ emoji again reflecting my flesh and blood face. ‘Sorry again for implying you were- you know.’

‘It’s okay,’ Chloe types with a ‘smiling’ emoji of her own. ‘Guess I was a little full-on. And yes, I like you for you!’ This time, I reply to Chloe’s ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji with a ‘giggling’ one.

‘I like you too,’ I type. ‘And I might be able to arrange a meeting with Angels or Out of Heaven…’ Much to my surprise, my ‘winking’ emoji gets a ‘rolling eyes’ emoji in return.

‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Freeman,’ Chloe types with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji. ‘Doesn’t make you any less sexy if you never appear on TV!’ Okay, I think to myself. Decision time- I can easily ‘reel her in’ with the robot, if I don’t mind being a hypocrite (and committing myself to being in the on-screen team), or I can do things the hard way and let her find out later… Despite my best efforts, I find my male ego (and, more notably, my libido) taking over, and I type the next message almost on automatic pilot.

‘Does that include Robot Wars?’ I type with a ‘winking’ emoji, grinning as I get a ‘shocked’ one in reply.

‘You’ve built a robot!?!?!?’ Chloe asks with more ‘shocked’ emojis.

‘One of my friends has, but I’m on the team,’ I reply.

‘Can I see it? Can I have a go with it?’ Chloe asks.

‘I’ll have to clear it with him,’ I reply. ‘But I don’t see why not. Most first dates don’t involve taking turns driving 100kg metal boxes though!’

‘Most first dates are lame,’ Chloe replies with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji. ‘This sounds awesome!’

‘It’s a date, then?’ I ask.

‘Hell yeah it is!’ Chloe replies with a ‘grinning’ emoji that actually makes me light-headed with excitement.

Naturally, when I eventually go to bed, I don’t get much sleep. My life has had so many ups and downs that sometimes it feels like I have far more ‘downs’ than ‘ups’. One thing’s for certain, though, Chloe is shaping up to be as much an ‘up’ as her sister was a ‘down’- maybe even more so. Assuming she’s okay going out with a boy who doesn’t have anything that can be ‘up’…

My sleeplessness results in me being extra tired when I get up on Monday morning, something that grandma turns a blind eye to (having almost certainly guessed the reason for my fatigue) but my friends immediately pick up on when I meet up with them at the college entrance.

“All-nighter, then?” Neil asks as I walk up to my friends and barely stifle a yawn. “What’s her name?”

“Chwilen,” I retort, laughing as I earn an angry stare from Lee.

“…She loves me and only me,’ Lee retorts. “Unless of course you mean you were up all night making designs for her?”

“Mate, if hell freezes over and you ever do get a girlfriend, you’d better get one who doesn’t mind playing second fiddle to a robot!” Neil says, making us all laugh as Lee ‘punishes’ him with a playful shove.

Naturally, the playful ribbing continues as we meet up for lunch- perpetrated in part by me offering Lee a ‘team logo’ which consists of a love heart with the letters ‘C’ and ‘L’ in it.

“How many times, exactly, have you been sarcastic to us in the past?” I ask, making the black-haired boy sigh loudly.

“We take the piss because we care,” Rob says.

“And we want revenge,” Neil says, making me and Rob snort with laughter.

“…Okay, okay,” Lee sighs. “As long as you all realise that she loves ME and the best you three arseholes will ever be are ‘friends WITHOUT benefits’.”

“We could never come between a love so strong,” Rob snorts. “How is she doing, anyway?”

“Purring like a kitten,” Lee says with a proud grin. “A kitten with a massive metal blade on the front, anyway!”

“You still want our drinks cans?” I ask. “Or can we finally start actually recycling them?”

“You ARE recycling them,” Lee retorts. “Better they go to Chwilen then making something useless, like a car door or something like that. And I’ll always need spare body panels, that sort of thing. She’s going to take a lot of punishment when she eventually gets into the arena…”

“You can actually see him starting to tear up at that thought,” Neil says, laughing as Lee gives him yet another shove. I laugh and start to tuck into my chicken burger, when I’m suddenly distracted by the last thing I expected to see.

There, all the way across the dining hall, is the familiar petite body and red hair of the girl I spent most of yesterday evening talking to. And it’s obviously her and not her sister, or a lookalike, or another random girl. Her tight top, long pencil skirt and high-heeled shoes is the trademark look of Kayla Ford, her fashion idol. Her make-up is identical to the style she wore yesterday, and the chevron-shaped pendant she’s wearing around her neck is the ultimate giveaway. To my friend’s bemusement, I crane my neck to get a better look, which results in my eyes meeting Chloe’s- and a wide grin quickly spreading across the ginger girl’s face as she scurries toward where me and my friends are sat.

“I- Ian?” Chloe asks.

“What- what are you doing here?” I ask, standing up and being immediately surprised (not to mention embarrassed in front of my friends) when Chloe dumps her meal on our table and gives me a tight hug and a gentle kiss on my cheek.

“I study here, silly!” Chloe giggles. “I told you I was at college, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but-“ I retort. “There’s, umm, more than one college in, umm, in Cardiff…”

“Get a room,” Lee snorts, the devilish grin quickly returning to his face.

“Oh, umm,” I mumble. “Guys, this is Chloe, we, umm, met yesterday, Chloe, this is Rob, Neil and Lee… Yeah.”

“Nice to meet you all,” Chloe says with a giggle. “So… Which one of you built the robot, then?”

“Me!” Lee says, his devilish grin changing into a smug one.

“Ugh, SO cool,” Chloe sighs. “Ian was telling me about it last night…”

“Yeah, it’s not Ian’s to talk about,” Lee says. “I’m guessing he promised you a test drive as well?”

“…He said he’d talk it over with you,” Chloe says, flashing a devilish grin at me as I feel my cheeks redden.

“I think we can arrange something,” Lee says as Chloe becomes distracted by the corner of the dining hall she came from.

“Ugh, think my friends are waiting for me,” the ginger-haired girl says, before giving me another hug. “This is so cool that we go to the same college! What a coincidence, eh?”

“Yeah,” I laugh, sitting down as Chloe flashes me a grin, grabs her lunch and heads back to her friends. I pick up my burger again, ready to tuck in, when I suddenly realise that all three of my friends have stopped what they’re doing and are staring expectantly at me. “…What?”

“Mate,” Rob says quietly. “Nice going! She is cute!”

“No wonder you’re knackered today,” Lee says. “I won’t tell Chwilen you’re cheating on her, then…”

“Thank you, thank you,” I say with a smug grin.

“Mate,” Neil says, a look of concern spreading across her face. “Guys, didn’t- didn’t you notice?”

“Hard NOT to notice,” Lee says. “Interpret ‘hard’ however you want.”

“Didn’t she look familiar to you?” Neil asks. “Similar to someone we met on the beach a couple of months ago…?”

“Oh- yeah, she’s Hannah’s sister,” I say matter-of-factly, snorting with laughter as Neil nearly chokes on his lunch.

“Her- her sister!?” Neil asks. “Have- have you, umm, told her-“

“Yes, I’ve told her,” I sigh. “She’s cool with it. Chloe’s, like, the white sheep of her family, nothing like Hannah.”

“It’s gonna be fun when you meet her family for the first time,” Neil says, the shocked expression not leaving his face.

“You’re not the first person to have said that,” I say. “It’s a bridge I’ll cross when I get to it.”

“And to be fair to her,” Neil says quietly. “She- she’s not as hot as Ella, you know?”

“…Maybe objectively speaking,” I shrug. “But she’s cute, she’s funny, she likes the things I like… I’ve got a good feeling about this, you know?”

“Well- okay,” Rob says. “I’ve just got the feeling we may end up picking up the pieces again…”

“Yeah, well, I’m the only one doing any ‘picking up’ right now,” I sigh.

“If you insist,” Neil sighs.

“…In slightly drier news,” Lee says. “I can put Chwilen together and give you all a go tonight, if you want.”

“Sounds good,” Rob says with a grin.

“Can-“ I begin, before being immediately interrupted.

“Yes, you can bring your bloody girlfriends along,” Lee says, looking tiredly at me and Neil as wide grins spread across our faces.

A few hours later, as the sun starts to set, I find myself once again stood in Lee’s back garden with the control for Chwilen in my hands and the robot itself almost literally dancing around the garden. By my side is the girl I unexpectedly ran into today, watching the robot intently- a noticeable difference from Neil’s girlfriend, who’s spent the entire evening fiddling with her phone and barely acknowledging anyone’s existence- including her boyfriend.

“You actually are really good at this,” Lee says. “Really coordinated, you know?”

“Who’d have thought that twelve years of ballet would actually have a purpose,” I say with a snort of laughter.

“Hell, if that’s what it is, I’LL sign up for classes,” Lee laughs.

“Five years of ballet here,” Chloe says, leaning in close to me and reaching for the control. “Give me a go!”

“You heard the lady,” Lee says, making me playfully roll my eyes and sigh as Lee takes the control from me and hands it to Chloe. “Have you ever played Katamari?”

“I love Katamari!” Chloe gasps excitedly. “So each stick controls a wheel, forward and backward, right?”

“Ian,” Lee says with a serious expression on his face. “Marry her now. Seriously.”

“Oh piss off,” I say, even as I find myself exchanging a smile with the ginger-haired girl.

“I’m not having Chwilen as one of my bridesmaids,” Chloe snorts. “Even though she’s asked me to be maid of honour when she marries you, Lee.”

“…I changed my mind,” Lee snorts. “Dump her.”

“Piss off,” Chloe says with a giggle, making the robot’s owner smirk as she expertly steers it around the course that’s been laid out in the garden.

“…Welcome to Team Chwilen, I guess!” Lee says with a smirk.

Chloe’s turn only lasts a few minutes before Lee has to recharge the batteries, and while he’s tinkering with the robot, I head into the kitchen, accompanied by the petite ginger-haired girl who’s been hanging off my arm all evening.

“I really like your friends,” Chloe says as we sit down in the quiet room. “Even Lee. Well, when he isn’t talking, anyway.”

“Yeah, I always prefer him that way too,” I say with a grin. “I think they like you too, you know?”

“Yeah, I’m feeling that,” Chloe says. “Glad what my sister did didn’t turn them off TOO much, heh.”

“It hasn’t turned me off,” I say with a smile. “Not that you can tell, heh.”

“Aww,” Chloe sighs. “How you use what you have is more important than what you have, you know? My last boyfriend was hung like a horse but useless in bed…”

“NOT really something a potential boyfriend wants to hear, heh,” I say, making Chloe blush.

“Sorry,” the ginger girl mumbles. “But, you know? Jamie-Lee Burke’s husband was pre-op transsexual guy, he was obviously more than good enough for her, right? I mean, you guys ‘know your way around’, that sort of thing?”

“My last girlfriend didn’t have any complaints,” I say, making Chloe bite her lip and me feel bad for ‘retaliating’ to her comment about her previous boyfriend. “Umm… She wasn’t, you know, as much ‘one of the guys’ as you, heh.”

“Yeah…” Chloe whispers. “I’m nowhere near as much, you know, ‘one of the guys’ as you are, though!”

“Yeah, but, you know,” I reply. “There’s a bit more of a reason for that, heh.”

“Mm,” Chloe muses. “But, you know? I- I get, you know, girls like Jamie-Lee Burke or Stephanie Abbott, girls who’ve felt that they don’t belong in their bodies, who’ve always wanted to be ‘one of the girls’ but they couldn’t, because of, you know, society, that sort of thing…”

“But it’s easier for a girl to like things like Robot Wars and Star Trek than it is for a guy to like fashion and make-up?” I ask.

“Kinda, yeah,” Chloe mumbles. “You- you don’t have to be an Angel, or want to be one, just because you’re a girl. You can be just as tomboyish as you are and most people wouldn’t bat an eyelid, you know?”

“So why am I having testosterone pumped through my veins?” I ask, smiling as Chloe nods. “Because I’m not a tomboy. I’m a boy, simple as that. Yeah, I can dress like I am, not wear skirts, not even wear make-up. I can ignore fashion magazines and only read comic books, I can get rid of my Sex and the City DVDs and only watch Star Trek, I can do all those things and call myself a girl without any issue. But that’s not who I am inside. It’s not about what I do with my free time, or even how I’m seen by others, it’s how I feel inside. Being a girl, it- it just felt WRONG. Like, on an atomic level, it’s just not who I am or who I was supposed to be. You’re not the first person to, you know, ‘question’ me, my counsellor in London thought at first that it was a knee-jerk reaction to my mum pushing me so hard, but it isn’t. How can I put this… Imagine a room with twenty people in it. Nineteen of them are women, dressed identically to me, wearing no make-up, even with the same hairstyle as me. The twentieth person is me. I would be the odd one out. I would be the one who didn’t fit in, and I never have.”

“I- I think I understand,” Chloe whispers.

“All I’ve ever wanted to be is a boy,” I say with a gentle smile that the ginger girl mirrors.

“You know,” Chloe says, “by your logic, there’s no reason why you, as a boy, couldn’t like, say, ballet, or fashion, or-“

“Or the Angels?” I ask, making Chloe blush. “Or Out of Heaven? I guess not, I suppose. And they are pretty cool girls.”

“And you’re a pretty cool boy,” Chloe says as our eyes lock with each other.

What feels like an eternity passes as we lean in toward each other, and then a surge of energy passes through my whole body as our lips meet. I don’t know how long the kiss lasts- our mouths don’t even open- but by the end of it, I feel like I’m about to melt off of my chair, and it’s obvious that Chloe feels the same way.

“Wow- okay then,” the ginger girl breathlessly gasps.

“Yeah,” I whisper, before leaning in to give Chloe another, long kiss. I shiver with excitement as Chloe reaches underneath my top, giving my firm abdominal muscles a squeeze, while at the same time, I tentatively lower my hand to her leg, giving her nylon-covered thigh a squeeze as I gingerly explore underneath her skirt...

Unsurprisingly, both Chloe and I have wide grins on our faces when we emerge from the kitchen a few minutes later, our fingers interlinked. The smile only widens as the evening goes on, especially when I arrive home to find a notification on my iPad- ‘confirm that you are in a relationship with Chloe Barnard’. Obviously, I press ‘confirm’, and the rush that action gives me is almost as great as the feeling I got from kissing my girlfriend- a sentence I hope to use a lot from now on, ‘my girlfriend’.

However, I’m almost immediately reminded that while I may be on a high now, it won’t be all smooth sailing from here on. The first reaction to our news is from Chloe’s sister- and unsurprisingly, the reaction is ‘angry’. The next one, however, is from an unexpected source- from my ‘mentor’ Stuart Milton, who not only gives the post a ‘like’ but takes the time to type out a comment. It may only read ‘nice’ followed by a smiling emoji, but that’s more than I could have expected from him. I can only imagine Chloe’s reaction when the news gets ‘love’ reactions from Jamie-Lee Burke and Stephanie Abbott, as well as Abbey-Gayle and the rest of her gang- apart from one person. Despite the fact that I can see that she’s online, and that she must have seen the news, Ella doesn’t react to the news at all, not so much as a ‘like’. I know it shouldn’t affect me- I have, after all, moved on- but it’s something I just can’t shake from my mind.

For now, though, I have a reason to look forward to the future, and that’s just what I’m going to do. Grandma’s right- being cautious is okay, but I’ll never be happy if I don’t seize the opportunities that present themselves. And over the next few weeks, I plan on doing a lot of ‘seizing’- especially of my new girlfriend!

“Go in peace to love and service the lord,” Reverend Stubbs proclaims with a wide smile on his face.

“In the name of Christ, amen,” I- and the rest of the congregation- reply.

“And on a slightly more festive note,” the young priest says, “a very, very Merry Christmas to you all!”

“Merry Christmas!” The congregation replies with light-hearted chuckles. I take a deep breath as I raise from my pew and help my grandmother to her feet. As usual, we’re one of the last to leave, and as usual, grandma stops to talk to the young vicar before we head out of the small church.

“Thank you for coming as always, Mrs. Jones, Ian!” reverend Stubbs says with a wide grin. “I take it I’ll be seeing you tomorrow?”

“Of course,” grandma says while I remain silent, knowing better than to argue. “We can’t stop for long today, though, this young man needs to get to work!”

“We will be really busy today,” I explain. “People buying last minute presents…”

“Ah, yes,” Reverend Stubbs chuckles. “At least you’ll have tomorrow off work, while I, of course, will be hard at it…”

“One of the few professions obliged to work on Christmas Day?” I ask, making the young man- and, fortunately, grandma too- chuckle happily.

“Well, if we can’t celebrate his birthday, whose can we celebrate?” Reverend Stubbs says with a happy chuckle. “And speaking of, it’ll be yours in a few days, won’t it?”

“Yep, Saturday,” I say. “My eighteenth, actually.”

“Ah, the most important one of them all!” Reverend Stubbs chuckles. “You’ll finally be an adult…”

“Ian has a girlfriend, is taking driving lessons and has a job,” grandma says with a playful snort of laughter. “He’s practically an adult already.” I know another grandmother who’d disagree with that, I think to myself.

“I always wondered why eighteen was arbitrarily chosen as the ‘limit’,” Reverend Stubbs muses. “Hardly makes sense that you’re not mature enough at 17 years and 364 days, but mature enough the day later. But, I suppose they have to have the cut-off somewhere. And Ian IS a very mature young man.”

“Thanks,” I say, trying my hardest not to blush.

“And I will admit to a bit of jealousy,” Reverend Stubbs laughs. “Always having your birthday in the school holidays! Now go on, get to work, I don’t want you to be late and neither does he!”

“Thanks,” I say, shaking the vicar’s hand before following grandma out to her car. A short while later, the car pulls up outside the shopping mall that contains my place of work- but as I get out of the car, it’s clear that something is upsetting my grandmother.

“I will see you later, Ian,” grandma says in a clipped voice, almost like she’s choking back tears.

“Grandma… Are- are you alright?” I ask.

“I’m fine,” grandma says, pointedly looking away from me as she speaks. “Will your friends be picking you up again?”

“Umm, yeah,” I mumble. “Rob- Rob will be picking me up, I’ll be at his house for a, umm, bit…”

“Then I shall see you later tonight,” grandma says, before driving away, leaving me feel uneasy about the sudden downturn in her mood.

However, I don’t have any time to dwell on grandma’s mood, as the day goes as expected- so busy that I barely get the chance for any idle chit-chat with Dean or any of the customers who come in. However, it starts to ease off just after 3:30pm, allowing me some relief- and putting a wide smile on my face when a familiar petite girl with flame-coloured hair and a face full of freckles walks through the shop door.

“Hey!” Chloe giggles, leaning over the counter to give me a long kiss.

“Hey!” I reply, giggling nervously as I exchange another kiss with the painfully pretty girl.

“Been busy today?” Chloe asks.

“Ugh, it’s been unreal,” I reply.

“Speaking of, you going to buy anything?” Dean interjects, his tone of voice letting us know that he’s not being entirely serious.

“I’m browsing,” Chloe replies, earning a chuckle from my supervisor.

“There’s not much left to browse!” Dean retorts with another laugh. “You got all your presents already?”

“Yep!” Chloe says with a happy grin.

“Got plenty for me?” I ask teasingly.

“You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow, won’t you?” My girlfriend retorts with a smug grin. “But seriously, yes, I dropped them round to your grandma just now. And, yes, picked up yours for me, hehe! Your grandma got me a present too, which was an unexpected surprise!”

“She’s very generous,” I say. “Very Christian, but in a good way, if you know what I mean?”

“Oh- sure,” Chloe says, before biting her lip- a sure sign that she’s thinking something that she wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable saying out loud.

“…What’s up?” I ask. “You know I won’t be offended, it’s not likely to be anything I’ve not heard before…”

“I just- I just wonder if she, umm,” Chloe mumbles. “If she misses having a granddaughter, that’s all…”

“She- she has been a bit down lately,” I sigh. “Dunno if that’s it. Hope it isn’t, as she’s the only family I actually have, heh.”

“As long as you don’t let it affect YOUR Christmas,” Chloe says with a warm smile.

“Hell no!” I reply with a grin, though inside, I can’t help but wonder if Chloe is right. Grandma will never say it, of course, but I know she loved spoiling ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ at Christmas, especially with my birthday being only a handful of days afterward. But last Christmas- my first as ‘Ian’- was no different, with one important exception- it was my first living away from my parents, and as such, grandma’s first Christmas where she had to defend me against her own daughter, and she can’t be looking forward to doing THAT again.

I make a mental note to ask grandma about this worry, but I’m also determined to follow my girlfriend’s advice and not let it ruin my Christmas. Almost immediately after my shift ends and I’ve bid Dean a merry Christmas, I head with my girlfriend to the car park, where my lift is waiting. Both Chloe and I take a deep breath as Rob- with a wide grin on his face- tilts the driver’s seat forward to allow us to climb onto the back seat- which is always a source of entertainment for our friends.

“Just grab her bum and give her a push!” Lee- who’s sat on the passenger seat of the car- teases, laughing as Chloe gives him a slap on the back of the head en route to the middle of the back seat.

“God, why did I have to wear such a short skirt today?” Chloe moans, tugging the garment down to try to preserve her modesty as she gets settled and I sit down next to her.

“Because the last time you tried it in one of the longer skirts you usually wear, it was even funnier,” Neil- who’s sat on the other side of Chloe- says, laughing as my girlfriend ‘treats’ him to a slap of his own.

“If only they made trousers for women,” Lee muses.

“I have great legs, why hide them?” Chloe replies with a smug grin, which grows wider as I mime grabbing her thigh.

“Shorts, then?” Neil asks.

“Meh, I prefer skirts,” Chloe shrugs. “They’re just much more comfortable.”

“Which, before anyone- Lee- says anything, is definitely a matter of opinion,” I say, earning giggles from the rest of the car even as I stare down at the smart black trousers covering my legs- and how much I wished I could wear them when I was coerced to wear the clothes my girlfriend is wearing now. Mum, of course, argued that years of ballet, gymnastics and cheerleading gave me a great body, that it- especially my legs- warranted being shown off to the world. Objectively, she may have been right, but deep inside, I died a little every time I stretched a pair of tights over my legs, or slipped into a skirt, which the single most inconvenient item of clothing ever invented and not just for the reasons my girlfriend just demonstrated. Also, trousers are far warmer, even the comparatively loose-fitting ones I’m wearing now.

“BOY,” Chloe says with a cheeky grin that I return as I mime grabbing her nylon-covered thigh once again. “Oh, for god’s sake already…” I let out a surprised yelp as Chloe suddenly grabs my left hand and, before I can protest or pull it away, clamps it to her thigh, forcing me to give it a firm squeeze.

“Mmm,” I say with a playful laugh. “Warm! You know, I am going to take this as permission to grab your thigh whenever I want, right?”

“Good,” Chloe replies with a smug grin.

“Get a room!” Lee yells, making me and my girlfriend roll our eyes.

“Like you don’t sleep with that robot of yours,” Chloe retorts.

“Hey!” Lee protests. “Leave Chwilen out of this. Besides, she needs to save herself for her big TV appearance!” The whole car laughs as Lee reminds us of our impending brush with fame, even myself, despite my earlier misgivings. Sure, it’ll get my face on TV, which is what mum always wanted (and what I always dreaded), but it’ll be on a very niche show, and I’ll only be one face in a larger team- and it’s extremely unlikely that mum would approve of the show I’ll be appearing on!

A short while later, the car arrives at Rob’s house, where we spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing, playing videogames and just generally hanging out, though I can’t get the look on grandma’s face out of my mind no matter how hard I try. Sure enough, when I get home- after giving Chloe her goodbye kiss, of course- grandma is sat in her chair with a look on her face that can best be described as ‘distant sadness’.

“Hi grandma,” I say, trying to sound as enthusiastic as I can. My enthusiasm, however, quickly vanishes when grandma looks at me, her facial expression unchanged.

“Hello Ian,” grandma replies in an almost cold tone of voice that makes me wither. “Did you enjoy playing with your friends?”

“Umm, yeah…” I reply cautiously. “Chloe said- she said she dropped round some presents, is that correct?”

“She did, yes,” grandma says, her voice showing slightly more emotion than it had previously. “She’s such a nice young girl. Reminds me a little of your mother at that age.”

“…Just what every boy wants to hear about his girlfriend?” I reply, frowning as my joke falls flat. “Grandma, are- what’s- what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m fine,” grandma lies, rising from her chair. “What would you like for dinner, Ian?”

“Grandma,” I say softly. “Something IS wrong, isn’t it?”

“It’s nothing that you need to worry about, Ian,” grandma says.

“But it’s making you upset,” I retort. “Something’s making you upset, anyway. Is- is it something I’ve done?” I bite my lip as grandma suddenly stops dead in her tracks and lets out a long, pained sigh.

“…No, Ian,” grandma says, turning around with an obviously forced smile on her face. “It’s nothing you’ve done, and if you think I’m taking out some kind of frustration on you, then I apologise. You should have no reason to feel upset. Ever.”

“But- but you ARE upset,” I say. “It’s kinda obvious. Do- do you miss…” I take a deep breath as Chloe’s words from earlier in the day come back to mind. “Do- do you miss having- having a granddaughter?”

“Why on earth should I miss my granddaughter?” Grandma scoffs. “’She’ hasn’t gone anywhere, ‘she’ is now my grandson and is much happier than when he was a girl, isn’t that right?”

“Well- yes,” I reply. “Loads happier.”

“Which is why you shouldn’t ever feel any blame, or any guilt,” grandma says. “I do, however, miss my daughter.” I frown as the root cause of grandma’s unhappiness is revealed- and despite what she said, if it wasn’t for my actions 16 months ago, grandma wouldn’t need to miss her daughter…

“I’m sorry,” I mumble.

“What did I just say about not feeling guilty?” Grandma says.

“If I hadn’t become a boy, you’d probably be with mum right now, celebrating Christmas,” I say.

“I also wouldn’t have a grandson,” grandma retorts. “Instead I’d have a granddaughter who would be miserable, and might have more marks on her wrist.” I bite my lip as I’m forced to admit that what grandma says is almost certainly correct.

“Still, though…” I mumble.

“If anyone here is to blame, it’s your mother,” grandma says with a look of determination on her face. “Especially after what she said and did in summer!”

“You won’t get any argument from me,” I say. “But still, even last year, we exchanged presents.”

“Last year, your parents didn’t know about ‘Ian’,” grandma reminds me. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t get you anything this year.”

“I’m expecting not to get anything this year,” I say. “Which would be an improvement over last year.” I let out a small shudder as I remember the presents I received last year- especially the presents given by my other grandmother, which would be more appropriate for a 6 year old girl than a 16 year old regardless of gender.

“Nonetheless, they may have bought me presents,” grandma says stoically. “I know how vindictive your mother is, so I’m prepared to face the fact that she may not have done. And- and I have bought her presents too.” I grimace at what grandma is undoubtedly implying- especially as I have news that will undoubtedly surprise her…

“So have I,” I mumble, and as expected, grandma gasps in shock. “Just a small thing. A brooch, like I got her a few years ago… Didn’t imagine I’d actually give it to her, I’d probably have ended up giving it to you for your birthday instead…”

“She knows where we live,” grandma says coldly. “If she wishes to come and collect her presents, she is welcome to.”

“She probably doesn’t even know we bought them,” I sigh. “And there’s only one way to let her know…” Much to my surprise, grandma hesitates- she’s obviously as reluctant to speak to my mother over the phone as I am.

“…No,” grandma says in a quiet, emotional voice. “She is in the wrong. She can call us.”

“She won’t,” I scoff, which bring the sadness back to grandma’s face.

“This will be the first Christmas I won’t have spent at least partly with Angela,” grandma muses. “At least I will have SOME family with me.”

“Yeah,” I say, the guilt building inside me despite grandma’s insistence that I shouldn’t blame myself. “You- maybe you should go to London? Tomorrow, I mean?”

“I told you, Ian, she is to blame, she should seek us out,” grandma replies.

“Which will never happen,” I retort. “You know how stubborn she is.”

“But if I go, I leave you alone at Christmas,” grandma says. “Your girlfriend’s family wouldn’t be happy to see you if what you say about her sister is true.”

“It is,” I sigh. “But- but I’m an adult, or near enough. I’ll be fine. The only other alternative is- is if I go to London too…”

“Well that would be your choice, Ian,” grandma says. “If you want to go to London then I will happily drive you there tomorrow. Ian, do- do you want to go to London, to see your parents?” I pause as grandma asks me the question that I really didn’t want to hear, as I genuinely don’t know the answer to it.

Obviously, my first instinct is to say ‘hell no’ and forget that my parents ever lived. Growing up, they were nothing but a source of stress to me. Mum pushed me so hard in directions I didn’t want to go that in a way I’m lucky that I’m still alive, and dad could have been replaced by a cardboard cut-out and it would’ve been an improvement. On the other hand, though, they ARE my parents, and they are the only family I have apart from grandma, who, as much as I hate to admit it, won’t be around forever. And in her own warped way, I have to believe that mum genuinely does love me. She seemed almost prepared to accept me as her sun… But only when it looked like I’d be the next member of Stuart’s little ‘gang’. But then again, he and I have exchanged presents this year as well, so it’s not like I’m NOT a member of his group, I definitely consider him a friend, even if I haven’t seen him in almost five months. And as famous as she is, the same applies to his wife too. The more I think about it, the more I realise that Stuart and Jamie have been more like family to me than my ‘real’ family have. It’s just a pity that they’ll be too busy tomorrow (especially with a new baby in the household), otherwise I could’ve made the excuse of going to London to visit them.

However, these thoughts of my friends are distracting me from the real issue- whether I want to see my parents. Because as much as I can’t stand the sight of them, I have a lot I want to say to them, especially as I’m days away from becoming a legal adult. I want to tell them how I succeeded despite them, how I found who I truly am, started studying something I actually enjoy, found a girlfriend I really, really like, friends who are far closer than the gang my mother shoehorned me into, and even ‘fame’ on my own terms with Robot Wars. I’m particularly interested in my mother’s reaction to that last one- she’d probably stay ‘depressed’ for weeks. However, on the other hand, the guilt I’d no doubt feel would make ME feel miserable for weeks- and worst of all, there’s a very good chance that I might have a run-in with my other grandmother. All this means that I really only have one answer to grandma’s question.

“…I- I don’t know,” I sigh.

“Well you’ve got tonight to sleep on it,” grandma says. “And I’m sure you can speak to Reverend Stubbs about it tomorrow. But if it was up to me, I would go.”

“Really?” I reply.

“You’re the one who brought it up, Ian,” grandma reminds me.

“Only because I could see it was bothering you,” I retort.

“Well it was obviously bothering you too,” grandma says, sighing quietly as I nod. “Sleep on it. You can decide tomorrow. And as you shaved last night there’s no point in shaving tonight for church tomorrow, god won’t mind a little bit of growth.”

“And it’ll make more of an impact if I show up in London tomorrow with stubble on my face?” I ask, barely suppressing a smirk as grandma nods.

“You said that, not me,” the elderly woman replies. “Come on, let’s get dinner made.” I nod as I follow my grandmother into the kitchen, where I help her make a filling dinner of pork chops and vegetables.

We while away the rest of the evening watching television before heading to bed, though I don’t get much sleep. This isn’t out of the ordinary- it is Christmas Eve night, after all- but the circumstances today are obviously very different. When I was younger, say about 4 or 5, I’d always get excited for Christmas- at that age, receiving any presents was a joy, even if they would be presents that’d ultimately disappoint me, like ballet leotards or Barbie dolls. As I got older, about 11 or 12, that excitement gradually turned into anxiety, as I knew that each present would bring with it responsibilities- I would be expected to dance a routine in my new leotard, etc. I was still excited to unwrap the presents, of course, but the presents themselves got more and more disappointing right up until my final Christmas as ‘Kayleigh-Ann’, when I was all but ready to tear my own skin off in frustration.

Last Christmas, my first Christmas as ‘Ian’, was easily my best one yet. Coming out to my parents as ‘Ian’- and the disaster that ensued- did nothing to dampen my enthusiasms for opening my presents and discovering shaving kits, Lynx deodorant sets and male clothing, and spending the rest of the Christmas break with my friends. This year won’t be nearly as bad- my parents already know about ‘Ian’ and I have an awesome girlfriend as well as my three great friends, and by the time I go back to college in January, I’ll legally be an adult. I have a lot more going for me this year than I did last year on all fronts- and yet I feel just as anxious as I did this time twelve months ago…

I wake up early the following morning, as I have done on every Christmas morning in the past, and despite my anxiety about my decision about London, I have a smile on my face as I shower, pull on one of my special ‘flattening’ vests followed by a pair of smart trousers and a freshly-ironed light blue shirt, before heading downstairs, where grandma is already awake and making a delicious-smelling breakfast of bacon sandwiches.

“Good morning Ian, merry Christmas!” Grandma says with a cheerful grin.

“Merry Christmas!” I reply as I make us both cups of coffee. “What time are we heading out?”

“…You’ve made your decision, then?” Grandma asks cautiously, causing me a moment of confusion.

“Oh- no, umm, I meant to- to church…” I mumble.

“Oh- oh!” Grandma says. “We’ll head out just after breakfast… Have you made your decision about London, though?”

“…Not yet,” I sigh.

“Well I have,” grandma says. “I will be heading to London after lunch. If you want to accompany me, then I would like that very much, but the choice is yours.”

“Okay,” I whisper, my stomach starting to churn even as I scoff down my sandwich.

On the one hand, I am the one who suggested that grandma goes to London to see her daughter, and I do want to see my parents for closure if nothing else, but on the other hand, I just want to have a happy, quiet Christmas here in Cardiff, surrounded by the people who love me- but then again, I don’t want to be on my own, especially today… And I don’t have a lot of time left to make my decision.

I do, however, have one source of comfort. I woke up this morning as a 17 year old boy. Tomorrow morning, I will wake up as a 17 year old boy. Even if I do confront my parents, even if they do try to persuade, coerce or bully me into turning back into ‘Kayleigh-Ann’, I know that it will never happen, as grandma would never allow it. If I go to London, I won’t be fighting with my parents, because there is no fight- I’ve already won, and I’ve spent essentially all of the last 16 months winning.

My ‘wins’ continue as I open my presents to discover the usual, but no less welcome contents- new clothes, men’s deodorant, shaving sets, videogames, war gaming supplies and digital art books. The presents I received in the post from my friends in London are almost as good, too- football memorabilia (even from my female London-based friends), more fashionable clothes and even a couple of bits of memorabilia from an American Football game the group attended earlier in the year. Grandma is slightly confused by the tin of baked beans Stuart sent me, but accepts my explanation that it’s part of an in-joke. Of course, Chloe’s presents are my favourites, even if they’re not quite as expensive as the others. Her burned CD mixtape (with a lot of Out of Heaven on it, naturally) and a home-made chocolate cake (which smells delicious) mean more to me than even I realise, and I waste no time in sending a video ‘thank you’ message to Chloe before following grandma out to her car, which quickly whisks us toward the church we attended less than 24 hours ago.

The church service goes as per usual- Reverend Stubbs delivers his Christmas sermon, we sing carols instead of hymns and a group of children from the local C. In W. school show off their cards and presents. Predictably, grandma and I are among the last to leave at the end of the service, and even more predictably, grandma immediately shares my dilemma with the young priest, who directs me to a nearby pew for a quiet talk.

“It’s not an easy decision, I’ll grant you that,” Reverend Stubbs sighs. “And I won’t quote you ‘honour thy mother and father’ as we’ve had that discussion plenty of times before, and it makes me sick the amount of times unfit parents have used that phrase to justify abusing their children.”

“Thanks,” I say quietly.

“You need to focus on what would make you happy, first and foremost,” Reverend Stubbs says. “Obviously, taking others’ feelings into account is important, but if you being male is incompatible with your parents being happy, then that’s their problem. But that is a big ‘if’.”

“It seemed pretty certain 12 months ago,” I snort.

“A year’s a long time,” Reverend Stubbs retorts. “Especially if you suddenly go from being a parent to not being a parent.”

“Doubt dad even noticed,” I scoff. “Mum… Ugh, I dunno. I mean, there are things I want to say to her, but how much of it would be repeating what was said in August at the football match?"

"That was said in anger,” Reverend Stubbs reminds me. “This is a chance to speak calmly. Okay, I accept it may not stay calm, but unlike August, it’ll at least be on your terms.”

“I guess,” I shrug.

“And there’s one piece of advice I heard a while ago that I’ve always kept close to my heart,” the priest says. “You only regret the things you DON’T do.” Now where have I heard that before? I think to myself as I involuntarily smirk.

“Yeah,” I chuckle.

“I’ll let you get off,” Reverend Stubbs says, standing up and escorting me to the church door. “You’ve no doubt got loads of presents to open, and my husband’s parents will be waiting for us at their house, so I don’t want to keep them waiting, heh!”

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Umm, merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas!” Reverend Stubbs chuckles, bidding farewell to me and grandma with a firm handshake each.

“So, Ian,” grandma says as we climb into her car. “Did Reverend Stubbs help you make a decision?”

“Kinda,” I shrug. “He seems to think I should go, but, you know, he’s kinda being a bit over optimistic about how I’d be greeted…”

“You never know,” grandma says, making me think even harder about my decision as we head home.

With grandma definitely heading to London, we have our Christmas dinner early at lunchtime, meaning that I don’t have any time to think when I return home. Instead, I’m put to work peeling potatoes and washing vegetables while grandma prepares our turkey crown (with it being just the two of us, she didn’t get a full turkey). It’s almost 2pm by the time we’ve finished eating and all the dishes are washed, which means I barely have an hour to make my decision on whether or not to go to London.

While we’re watching Christmas television, and grandma is getting ready for her trip to London, I take the opportunity to switch on my tablet computer and log into Facebook, where- much to my relief and joy- Chloe is among the list of people showing as ‘online’. I start composing a message to her, but before I finish typing, I’m beaten to the punch.

‘Hey babe!’ Chloe types, followed by several ‘kissing’ emojis. ‘Merry Christmas!’

‘Merry Christmas!’ I reply with a ‘kissing’ emoji of my own. ‘You at home?’

‘Anywhere else I’d be?’ Chloe replies with a cheeky ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji. ‘Helping mum and Han get the turkey ready. You?’

‘Ate at lunch, just finished washing-up,’ I reply. ‘Don’t need to ask if you can save a seat, do I?’ I sigh as Chloe replies with a ‘sad’ emoji.

‘Not a good idea,’ Chloe types. ‘Especially not with my brother here too. And wouldn’t you be leaving your gran all by herself?’ I grin as Chloe presents me with an opportunity to ask what I need to ask almost before the conversation has started.

‘She’s actually going to London,’ I type. ‘Going to see my mum, who’s her daughter.’

‘Oh, so she’s leaving you alone?’ Chloe asks, and I bite my lip as I reply with a ‘winking’ emoji. ‘Lol nice try!’ Chloe’s ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji makes me roll my eyes, though it’s not unexpected- she and I have yet to be ‘physical’, though it’s more due to the fact that we’ve never been alone together than any lack of willingness on our part. At least, I hope Chloe isn’t ‘unwilling’…

‘I’m not going to be able to get away today,’ Chloe types, followed by a ‘sad’ emoji that earns a ‘hugging’ emoji from me. “Family’s all here and they’d only ask where I was going.’ This time, it’s my ‘sad’ emoji that earns a virtual hug from my girlfriend. ‘We’ll definitely have to get together before the end of the holiday!’

‘Definitely,’ I type with a ‘smiling’ emoji.

‘So you’re going to be on your own on Christmas evening, then?’ Chloe asks.

‘Unless I go with grandma to London,’ I type.

‘OMG why would you?’ Chloe- who obviously knows all about the situation with me and my parents- asks. ‘You know what they’ll say and you know how stressed you’ll be when you get back.’

‘They’re still my parents,’ I type. ‘You’ve told me how you and your brother don’t get along, but you’d be upset if you didn’t see him for months, right?’

‘One, we can at least be friendly to each other, you’ve told me that your relationship with your parents is utterly toxic,’ Chloe retorts. ‘Two, you ARE happy in Cardiff, you’ve made that clear loads of times. And your parents haven’t made any effort to come and see you since you last saw your mum, did they?’

‘Well no,’ I’m forced to concede. ‘Am I supposed to accept the fact that after my grandma dies I’ll have no more family?’

‘Better no family than a shitty family,’ Chloe types.

‘Easy to say when you have three brothers and sisters,’ I type, instantly regretting the message the second I send it. ‘Sorry, sorry.’

‘Nah, you’re right,’ Chloe types. ‘I don’t want to know what it’s like to have a family like yours, but I suppose they are still your family. You’re obviously looking for an excuse to go, so you should just go, Ian.’

‘Trying to convince myself that that’s the best thing, heh,’ I type. ‘Keep thinking about all the worst case scenarios, like if my parents kidnap me and force me to be a girl or something.’

‘You’ve taken boxing lessons for a year, I’d like to see them try,’ Chloe types, which I reply to with a ‘laughing’ emoji.

‘You know I actually know Laura White?’ I type. ‘The girl who was kidnapped by her dad a few years ago? Used to go to the same ballet class as her.’

‘Yeah, I know about Laura,’ Chloe types. ‘Though I’d have thought you’d say you know her from that photoshoot you did earlier in the year than going to ballet together.’

‘Ugh, that,’ I type.

‘Don’t be so down on it, I think it’s cool,’ Chloe types. ‘How many girls can claim that their boyfriend’s been interviewed by a newspaper magazine?’

‘Lol,’ I type with a ‘smiling’ emoji.

‘And if your parents do try anything,’ Chloe types, ‘then I’ll just have to come to London and rescue you, won’t I?’ Chloe’s ‘smug’ emoji makes me giggle and roll my eyes.

‘My hero,’ I type with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji that earns a ‘grinning’ one from my girlfriend in response.

‘G2G now, Han’s looking at me, think she’s noticed I’m not helping with dinner,’ Chloe types. ‘Good luck in London. xxxxxxxx’

‘Thanks xxxxxxxxxx,’ I reply, before letting out a long, loud sigh as Chloe signs out of Facebook.

“Were you talking to your young woman, Ian?” Grandma asks, having obviously noticed how quiet I’d become.

“Umm, yeah,” I reply. “She- I was, umm, telling her about London…”

“And have you made your decision?” Grandma asks. I take a deep breath to compose myself, before replying.

“…Yes,” I say.

“Are you sure?” Grandma asks. “Because once we’re on the road, there won’t be any turning back.”

“I’m sure,” I say confidently.

My confidence, however, wanes with every second that follows. My nerves jangle as I climb into grandma’s car and fasten my seatbelt, they fray as we cross the Second Severn Crossing into England, and by the time we arrive in the English capital, I’m practically peeing myself with fright. Grandma does her best to distract me en route with stories about Christmases when she was a girl, or when my mother was a girl, but these tales do nothing to set my mind at ease. I try to focus on what I want to say to my parents when I see them, but the closer I get to London, the more the words scramble inside my brain.

Before I know what’s happening, grandma and I are stood outside the house I lived in for over a decade of my life, and when grandma pushes the doorbell, I feel my knees start to buckle.

“Smile, Ian,” grandma says.

“Seriously?” I ask.

“If you smile,” grandma explains, “it shows that you’re not here to start a fight. If there has to be an argument, let them start it.” I nod, before forcing an undoubtedly unconvincing, terrified smile on my face as the door opens to reveal my mother’s shocked face.

“Merry Christmas, Angela!” Grandma says with a warm, motherly smile.

“What- what are you doing here?” Mum replies. “And what is HE doing here?” A male pronoun already? I think to myself. This might be easier than I thought…

“Who is it, Angela?” The unmistakable voice of my paternal grandmother calls from the living room, instantly causing my entire body to tense up.

“It’s Pauline, Pauline Jones,” grandma replies. “Angela’s mother. I’m here with our grandson!” So much for not starting a fight, I think to myself. Sure enough, seconds later, the old woman storms up to the front door with a look of utter fury on her wrinkled face.

“What is that disgusting thing doing on my son’s doorstep?” Grandma Walker spits.

“Is that any way to speak about your grandson?” Grandma Jones replies, her own voice seething with rage.

“Here we go again,” I whisper to myself.

“I have no grandson!” Grandma Walker growls. “Just a stupid granddaughter who thinks it’s funny to prance around pretending to be a boy and who obviously needs some sense beating into her! I have half a mind to take her over my knee right now!”

“Try,” I growl, causing the older woman’s face to turn bright red- but oddly, bringing a smirk to the face of my mother, who has been strangely silent since the old woman emerged from the living room…

“How dare you speak to me like that, you wicked child!” Grandma Walker hisses. “Craig! Craig! Come here right now and show your daughter some discipline!” A few seconds later, dad dutifully scurries out of the living room to the front door with a look on his face that can best be described as a mixture of anger and fear.

“Kayleigh-Ann,” dad says. “You-“

“Ian,” I interrupt. “My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann. My name IS Ian. Start using it.”

“How dare you speak to your father like that!” Grandma Walker screeches. “You will do as he says, you awful little child!”

“You use the word ‘child’ a lot,” Grandma Jones says. “Ian will be 18 in five days, you know? A legal adult?”

“Which means that SHE is seventeen now,” Grandma Walker retorts. “And that’s a child, and children should do as they are told!”

“If I did everything I was told to do I’d probably be in a mental hospital by now,” I say. “Or worse.”

“Well then obviously your parents needed to beat some more sense into you when you were younger!” Grandma Walker spits- and much to my surprise, my mother actually sneers in disgust at this suggestion. And I will have to credit her with something- as much as she shouted at me, as much as she pressured me when I was younger, as much as she psychologically and emotionally tortured me… She never laid a finger on me physically.

“Any parent who beats their child doesn’t deserve to call themselves a parent at all!” Grandma Jones spits.

“Well it’s obvious YOU’d think like that,” Grandma Walker sneers. “Look at you, encouraging this disgusting, deviant behaviour! You’d probably encourage her to make friends with queers and blacks too! I bet you voted Labour in the election!”

“Who I voted for is none of your business,” Grandma Jones scoffs.

“And as for hanging out with those words you just said,” I say, smirking as mum’s eyes suddenly go wide, “you didn’t have any complaints when mum arranged for me to take ballet classes from a bisexual teacher and a woman who’s currently engaged to a bigendered person? A class that actually had transgendered students, and students from all ethnicities, including the girl that mum encouraged me to try to be best friends with- and where was she originally from again? Jamaica, wasn’t it?” Unfortunately, despite the giveaway look of terror that’s creeping across my mother’s face, Grandma Walker just laughs in my face.

“Don’t lie,” the wrinkled old hag scoffs. “You’ve already shown that you can’t be trusted by showing up here looking like that! Why should I believe anything that comes out of your mouth?”

“This was a waste of time,” I moan.

“The first truthful thing you’ve ever said!” Grandma Walker spits. “If I ever see you again you will be sorry that you were ever born!”

“We came to give you our presents to you,” Grandma Jones says, reasserting control over the situation. “Mine AND Ian’s. If you don’t want them, we will take them back to Wales with us.”

“Of course your presents aren’t welcome here!” Grandma Walker spits, and this is apparently all that my mother- who has never liked her mother-in-law- can take.

“Now wait,” mum says, earning a look of pure fury from Grandma Walker. “She’s driven all this way, it wouldn’t be just to have an argument-“

“How dare you tell ME to ‘wait’!” My paternal grandmother bellows in my mother’s face. “In my son’s house!”

“My house as well!” Mum says, before recoiling in shock as Grandma Walker suddenly slaps her across the face. Time seems to freeze as mum stands clutching her cheek in a state of shock. Almost in slow motion, her look of shock changes to one of utter fury, and she winds up her hand, striking the older woman back with a slap that I imagine I would’ve been able to hear all the way from my home in Cardiff.

“You- you-“ Grandma Walker stammers. “CRAIG! ARE YOU GOING TO LET THIS WOMAN DO THAT TO YOUR OWN MOTHER!?” Both Grandma Jones and I watch in horror as dad- with more emotion than I have ever seen him display- roughly grabs my mum by the arm and pulls her back into the house, closely followed by Grandma Walker. Naturally, both Grandma Jones and I follow, fearing for the woman’s safety, only for dad to suddenly turn around and shove Grandma Jones in the chest, sending her stumbling backward.

I feel myself shaking with rage as I see my grandmother, the woman who has raised me for the last year and a half, the woman who has supported me my whole life, the only member of my family I truly love, almost fall to the ground, which is only prevented by her grabbing for the door frame at the last second. I turn around to see dad lunging toward me to shove me in the same way, and at that point my instinct- and my 15 months of boxing training- take over and I feel my left hand ball into a fist, which I swing toward my ‘father’s face as hard as I can. It connects with his jaw, and I actually feel dizzy myself as I watch the middle-aged man collapse to the ground in a dazed heap as the three women in the room stare at me in shock. With her earlier righteous indignation gone and replaced by a look that’s a cross between fear and shock, Grandma Walker drags my father to his feet and marches him out of the house, stopping only to glare at the three of us with pure hatred in her eyes. What feels like an eternity passes as the three of us stand in the cold hallway, my hand still clenched into a fist and my blood still boiling from the confrontation.

“I- Ian,” Grandma Jones whispers. “Are- are you okay?”

“Mmph,” I moan, my extreme emotions causing my head to spin so much that when I take a step forward, my legs buckle and I collapse to the floor in a heap on exactly the same spot my father did.

I can only assume that the stress of the situation caused me to lose consciousness, as the next thing I know, I’m waking up in my bedroom- or rather, Kayleigh-Ann’s bedroom, the room I grew up in and came to despise over the last ten years. Much to my surprise, it’s barely changed since I last slept here. The furniture and decorations are the same, right down to the Angels posters on the wall and the make-up brushes and bottles of nail polish on the dressing table. A quick glance inside my drawers confirms that virtually all of my clothes are still present, too- even my old school uniform, which I thought I’d discarded almost two years ago.

I sigh as I reach into my underwear drawer and run my fingers across the pairs of black tights that have gone untouched over the last year and a half. They feel just as soft and as smooth as they did the last time I touched them almost two years ago, the last time I slid them up and down my legs… Or just as smooth as they felt yesterday afternoon when I felt an identical pair clinging to Chloe’s legs. I slowly withdraw one of the pairs from the drawer and hold it up to the light, watching as they glisten in the light from my lamp. I briefly wonder what it would be like to put the tights on again, to feel them stretch over my legs now that they’re more muscly and the skin is former and hairier, but then I realise I have genuinely forgotten how to put on a pair of tights. The same applies for the skirts and dresses in my wardrobes, and definitely applies to the bras and ballet leotards in my drawers. It’s been so long since I last wore any of these clothes that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to even put them on- and that’s knowledge I’ll never have any need for ever again. To all intent and purposes, my name was NEVER Kayleigh-Ann, and I was NEVER a girl.

I carefully put the tights away in my drawer and sit down on my bed when my bedroom door opens to reveal grandma stood there with a hot mug of tea in her hands and a concerned look on her face.

“Oh- oh thank god, you’re awake,” grandma says, immediately rushing over and placing her palm on my forehead.

“Umm, yeah,” I mumble. “What- what happened?”

“You blacked out after you hit your father,” grandma explains. “Which I do NOT approve of, but under the circumstances, as it was obviously self-defence, I won’t say anything more about it.”

“Yeah, I-“ I say, before remembering who I was defending from dad. “Oh my god, are- are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” grandma says with a light-hearted chuckle. “I’ve dealt with far scarier men than your father in the past, believe you me! It’s good to see those boxing lessons of yours are time well spent, though!”

“Yeah,” I chuckle. “How long was I out?”

“The length of time it takes me and your mum to carry you upstairs and make a cup of tea,” grandma replies. “Not long. You were more dazed than actually unconscious, anyway.”

“Yeah,” I whisper. “First time I’ve been in this room in over a year.”

“I imagine it must be,” grandma muses. “Do you miss it, Ian?”

“Absolutely not,” I reply. “This is just four walls. My bedroom in Cardiff is my REAL home.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” grandma says. “Though I’m not sure your mother would be.” My stomach starts to churn as I realise that the confrontation I came to London for is far from over.

“Is- is she still downstairs?” I feebly ask.

“This is her home, where else would she be?” Grandma retorts. “She’s very upset by what happened with your father. And what happened with you, too.”

“Ugh,” I groan. “I’ve spent the last eighteen years upsetting her, don’t see why that should stop now…”

“There’s no need for self-pity, Ian,” grandma chastises me. “That’s something you inherited from your mother that you DON’T need.”

“…Sorry,” I mumble.

“You came to London to speak to her, to get things off your chest,” Grandma reminds me. “Your father and that terrible woman obviously won’t listen. But your mother will, I’ll see to that.”

“Can- can I have a few minutes, please?” I mumble as I sip my tea.

“Come down when you’re ready,” grandma whispers, leaving me alone in my room to let out a long, quiet moan of frustration.

Any hope of this Christmas going better than last year have gone straight out of the window. I should’ve listened to my first instincts and not come to London in the first place. Sure, I’d be alone if I was still in Cardiff, but that’d be a vast improvement from my current situation- especially as with grandma downstairs talking to mum, I am all alone. I switch on my phone and log onto Facebook to see if anyone’s online, but none of my Cardiff friends are available- they’re all presumably spending time with their family, but probably in a more productive way than I’m doing right now.

However, as grandma would inevitably point out, if I ran back to Cardiff without saying what I wanted to say, I’d inevitably regret it until the next time I found myself in this house. And as has been repeatedly pointed out to me, you only regret the things you DON’T do. Why, then, am I seriously regretting the decision TO come here?

Mum and grandma are deep in conversation when I open the living room door and step through, frowning as mum very obviously bristles at my appearance.

“Are you feeling better, Ian?” Grandma asks, causing mum to bristle again at the mention of my real name.

“Yeah, thanks,” I say, leading to an awkward silence as my mother can’t even look at me. I take a deep breath, before reaching into the large carrier bag we brought from Cardiff and withdrawing a small, carefully wrapped package. “Umm, this is for you… Mum. Merry Christmas.”

“Thanks,” my mother whispers, taking the package from me and setting it down next to her, unopened.

“Angela,” grandma growls in a voice that makes both me and my mother wince.

With her frown not wavering, mum unwraps the gift, revealing a framed photo of me from the photoshoot I went to earlier in the year. It’s the sort of thing she SHOULD love- a reminder of the time I embraced the fame mum always encouraged me to love, but at the same time, a reminder that I am now unquestionably her son. Much to my dismay, though, mum simply puts the photo down next to her and pointedly looks away from it, making me frown and grandma scowl.

“Angela!” Grandma snaps. “Aren’t you going to thank your son for his present?”

“Why should I be grateful for a reminder of why my marriage ended?” Mum retorts, dramatically raising her hand to her forehead only to be stopped by a stern stare from grandma.

“How- how dare you,” I spit. “I can’t help being who I am. That pathetic excuse for a man and his witch of a mother can help being bigots!” I start to shrink into my chair as grandma gives me a stern stare and opens her mouth to chastise me, but much to my surprise, she remains silent- obviously she agrees with what I have to say.

“I’m not saying I approve of what they think,” mum says after a long pause. “You know I have no problem with you associating with people who are black, gay or transgendered.”

“Just as long as they’re rich and famous, right?” I retort.

“Ian!” Grandma snaps, instantly silencing me.

“Well there’s your problem, Kayleigh-Ann,” mum says, making my blood boil at the use of my dead name. “You never knew what was best for you. You ALWAYS acted out, disobeyed me and played up when I tried to help you reach your potential!”

“By making me do things you knew I hated?” I ask.

“There’s nothing wrong with being taken out of your comfort zone,” mum retorts, making me snort with laughter.

“’Comfort Zone’?” I say with a howl of laughter. “What ‘comfort zone’? When am I supposed to have ever been comfortable living here and being your pet project?”

“You’d have been comfortable when you were a millionaire superstar,” mum retorts.

“The same way Amy Winehouse was?” I ask. “Or Heath Ledger? Or Kurt Cobain?”

“You’d never have killed yourself,” mum scoffs. “You were never REALLY depressed, not like me, and you certainly aren’t transgendered either! All of- all of THIS is just an attempt to spite me, to make me feel bad for doing the right thing for you growing up, because you can’t stand the fact that I know what’s best for you!”

“If I’m not really transgendered,” I ask, “then how come I have a WRITTEN diagnosis of gender identity dysphoria, how come I’ve been taking hormones for over a year that will in all likelihood sterilise me, and- huh. Funnily enough, I came here to get things off my chest. Within the next twelve months, I intend to have an operation to LITERALLY get things off my chest.”

“No you won’t,” mum scoffs. “You’ll miss being a girl too much, and you’ll come crawling back to me.”

“Keep dreaming,” I snort. “I’ll never be famous, I’ll never be an actor, I’ll never be on TV, and I will never. Ever. Be a girl again!”

“Then what the hell is the point of you!?” Mum screeches.

“ANGELA!” Grandma yells, immediately defusing my mother’s anger. “Is that any way to speak to your offspring? How would you have felt if I spoke to you in the same way?”

“How would you feel if I spoke to you the way Kayleigh-Ann is speaking to me?” Mum retorts. “Or behaved the way she did when I was growing up?”

“You are and you did,” grandma says, silencing my mother. “Every Christmas and birthday, as I recall, a tantrum every time you didn’t get that expensive present you wanted, and on those years when you did get it, you were bored of it within days. What was it when you were eight, My Little Pony I believe?”

“…It wasn’t what I expected,” mum mumbles.

“And those ballet lessons you insisted on when you were younger?” Grandma asks. “Only to drop them like a bad habit AFTER I shell out over £50 for those special shoes of yours!”

“Well- well that’s why I made Kayleigh-Ann go to hers!” Mum insists. “So that she wouldn’t be wasting our money!”

“Did I ever ask for those lessons in the first place?” I ask. “Or acting lessons, or singing lessons, or private dance coaching?”

“You should’ve been grateful!” Mum hisses. “I would’ve given anything to have had the opportunities you did!”

“But did you ever once ask Ian if that was what he wanted?” Grandma asks.

“I shouldn’t have to,” mum says. “I’m HER parent, that means I know what SHE wants!”

“This was a total waste of time,” I sigh. “There’s no reasoning with her!”

“I’m not the one being unreasonable!” Mum retorts.

“So doing everything you say without question is your idea of reasonable?” I ask.

“Yes!” Mum yells.

“You never did when you were growing up,” grandma says, and for once, this silences my mother.

“Everything would be so much easier if you’d just stayed a girl,” mum finally says, unsurprisingly using her first words to criticise and blame me.

“For you, maybe,” I retort.

“Even if you did decide that you would rather play videogames than go dancing,” mum continues, surprising me slightly. “At least then you wouldn’t have alienated your father and his mother.”

“I’m not doing anything illegal,” I retort. “I am who I need to be. And what I need- I NEED to be, is male.”

“Then why do I look at you any only see a girl?” Mum asks.

“Because that’s the mask I was forced to wear for the last sixteen years,” I reply. “I’m not wearing a mask anymore. I’m not hiding who I am. You can accept me for who I am or never have anything to do with me again.”

“Your choice, Angela,” grandma says, silencing my mother again, though this time, she genuinely seems to be considering her decision. “If it helps, I know what I would have done if you’d given me the same ultimatum when you were eighteen. The fact that I’m here, now, should prove that.”

“I’m going to need some time,” mum says in a voice barely louder than a mumble. “I need to think things through, talk to Craig…”

“Take all the time you need,” grandma says softly.

“This isn’t something I can decide overnight,” mum says, making my heart sink- is it THAT hard a decision? “I have to think of Craig…”

“Very well,” grandma says. “We should get going and leave you to it.”

“Oh- but it’s late, and it’s a long drive,” mum says, which surprises both me and grandma. “Will- will you stay overnight? I can have the couch, you can sleep in my bed and Ka- eh, um, you can sleep in your old bed if you’d like?”

“I- I’d rather take the sofa,” I reply.

“I see,” mum whispers, clearly trying not to have another attack of ‘depression’.

“I’ll go and get some sheets down ready,” I say quietly. “Are they in the same place as usual?”

“Yes,” mum replies in a small, quiet voice as I get off the sofa and head upstairs. “Oh, Ian?”

“Yes?” I reply, before my jaw drops as I realise that for probably the first time ever, mum has addressed me by my real name.

“What- umm,” mum mumbles. “Do you have any plans for your 18th?”

“Not really,” I reply. “Umm… Probably- probably staying in Cardiff, with my friends and, umm, girlfriend…”

“Okay,” mum says, before smiling genuinely at me for the first time in many, many years.

None of us stay up for much longer after the ‘discussion’, opting for early nights instead, though despite this, and how exhausting the day’s been, I still struggle to sleep in the house that was once a home, but is now totally alien to me. I’m just thankful I’m not sleeping in ‘my’ room- it would’ve been impossible for me to sleep in there.

My mother is wrong in what she says, about me only pretending to be male to spite her. It’s who I am, and who I’ve always been on the inside. The last 24 hours have proved that, as have the 24 months before that. She never saw how I interacted with Ollie, or with my friends in Cardiff, or even with Stuart and his friends. And she certainly never saw me with my razor blade in my bedroom. My need to be male would be the same regardless of who my parents are. The difference is that it wouldn’t be as ‘urgent’ if I didn’t have a mother as domineering as her.

The fact that she feels she needs time to decide whether or not to accept me as her son is simply insulting. Then again, her love has always been conditional- conditional on me being a success at my acting or dancing, conditional on me making the right friends, conditional on me becoming famous… My grandmother’s love is unconditional. Hell, my friends’ acceptance is unconditional- my friends in Cardiff AND London- and so is Chloe’s, and their love is far more important to me. Love that has to be earned from jumping through hoops is worthless. And the kind of love ‘dad’ and ‘grandma’ Walker would give would be worse than worthless, it’d be toxic. I’m much better off without them in my life, and the same almost certainly applies to my mum as well.

And yet, I can’t help but wonder if there is SOMETHING I can do to show her, not to ‘earn’ her love but to prove to her that I am worth loving, unconditionally, as her son…

Despite my lack of sleep, I decide to get up early on Boxing Day morning and make myself breakfast. As I open the fridge, I can’t help but let out a loud groan as I see, almost in pride of place, half a dozen eggs and a small block of extra-mature Cheddar cheese.

“’Food plan’, eh?” I snort, remembering the years spent in this house eating vegan crap that made me feel sick and kept my weight at near-anorexic levels- which was undoubtedly my mother’s intention the whole time. With a smirk, I crack two eggs into a bowl and mix them together, before pouring them (and some grated cheese) into a frying pan and brewing a hot pot of coffee. It isn’t long before my cooking causes the other occupants of the house to wake up.

“…Kay- umm, Ian?” Mum asks hesitantly.

“Morning!” I say with forced cheerfulness. “Got some coffee going, do you want an omelette? I found some eggs in the fridge.”

“Umm… I’ll make my own,” my mother mumbles, leading to an awkward silence that’s mercifully broken seconds later by the arrival of my grandmother.

“Good morning, you two!” Grandma says as cheerfully as I had, though it’s hard to tell whether or not her cheerfulness is as fake as mine.

“Umm, what- what time will you be heading back to Cardiff?” Mum asks.

“That depends on Ian,” grandma replies. “We can stay around for a while, or get off immediately after breakfast?” I briefly glance at grandma, which is all the answer she needs to her question. “…We won’t be under your feet for much longer. Though, of course, you’re more than welcome to visit us in Cardiff any time you want.”

“Thanks,” mum mumbles.

“I, umm, need to get back anyway,” I say. “Promised the guys that we’d do some practice for Robot Wars today.”

“Ooh,” mum says, immediately perking up and causing me to squirm. “Are you going to be on Robot Wars, Ian? The television series?”

“…Me and a few friends,” I mumble. “I’m- I’m part of a larger team…”

“Still, though, that’s a great opportunity,” mum continues. “The woman who hosts it does adverts for Garnier, maybe you could-“

“Some things never change,” I sigh, bringing a look of shame to my mother’s face and a scowl to my grandmother’s- though I can’t tell whether that scowl is directed at me or at my mum. “I’m, umm, I’m going on that show to fight with robots. Nothing more.”

“But still, it wouldn’t hurt to ask-“ mum insists.

“Angela,” grandma says sternly, thankfully silencing my mother.

Naturally, this causes breakfast to be eaten in silence, and when grandma and I leave the house a few minutes afterward, we exchange the briefest of farewells- not even any hugs- before getting in grandma’s car and heading back towards home.

“…I’m sorry,” I mumble once we’re on the road. “I know you wanted that to go better…”

“Well it couldn’t have gone any worse, could it?” Grandma sighs, increasing my feeling of guilty. “And you have no need to apologise, Ian. What happened was not your fault. Your mother’s words and actions over breakfast prove that.”

“Thanks,” I whisper. “I’m definitely staying in Cardiff for my birthday, though. Noticed they didn’t have any presents for me yesterday…”

“They actually-“ grandma says, before taking a deep breath. “They bought a present, but it was only for ‘Kayleigh-Ann’. Your mother told me last night while you were getting the sheets for the sofa. It was a dress, an expensive one, and they’d hoped that you would wear it and they’d accept you as their daughter again.”

“I hope they understand now how and why that’ll never happen,” I retort.

“I don’t see that they have any choice,” grandma says. “And your mother WILL learn to accept you as her son, Ian. I will make sure of it.”

“And dad?” I ask.

“That man never deserved to call himself your father,” grandma spits. “I still maintain that you are the only good thing to come out of that marriage. I do hope that this time, he and your mother are separated for good.”

“’This time’,” I say. “I wouldn’t count on it, there have been more ‘this time’s than I can count.”

“This time will be different,” grandma says confidently.

“I hope so,” I sigh, before getting my phone out of my pocket and letting out a sigh. “Forgot to charge this last night, only a few per cent left…”

“Good,” grandma says, “Maybe that means you’ll actually talk to me on the way home?”

“Or play ‘I Spy’,” I retort.

“Don’t you dare!” Grandma replies with a chuckle as I put my phone back in my pocket and stare at the many street signs passing by, wincing when one of the first few points toward the ground of Acton Rovers FC.

“Ugh,” I spit. “Just what I needed to see…”

“What?” Grandma asks. “What is it, Ian?”

“Directions to the football ground where I had that massive argument with mum,” I groan. “Reason enough to get out of this city as fast as possible.”

“I remember when you were seeing that Australian girl,” grandma reminds me. “Sometimes I thought you were actually going to move back to London, heh. And what was the name of that young man who took you under his wing, Steven, wasn’t it?”

“Stuart,” I reply. “Yeah, he’s cool, I guess.”

“I would’ve liked to meet him,” grandma says, causing an idea to spring to mind.

The argument with my mum in the car park may have been one of the worst experiences of my life, but one of the things that I mustn’t forget are the people who stepped forward to defend me. Charlotte Hartley and Jamie-Lee Milton, two nationally famous women who had no stake in what was happening, put themselves forward and offered me their support without expecting anything in return. And Stuart, the guy who drove me to the station and waited with me until the train come, making sure I was alright before my long journey home. None of these people had to do these things for me- they did so out of the goodness of their own heart. And yet mum can’t even find it in herself to say ‘yes, I accept you as my son’, which are the only words I want to hear from her. It’s ironic- mum would be delighted to know that I’d made friends with these people, even though the friendships only formed in spite of her.

“I can see if he’s available, if you’d like?” I reply, a sly smile spreading across my face. “Boxing Day… Got an idea where he’s likely to be this afternoon.”

A couple of hours later, after a quick sightseeing tour (grandma’s only been to London a few times so we thought we’d make the most of it), the two of us step into a small, independent coffee shop and quickly locate the person we’re there to see- helped by the fact that he’s wearing a bright, royal blue football shirt.

“Hi Ian!” Stuart says, standing up and giving me a firm, masculine handshake. “Great to see you again. You must be Ian’s grandmother, right?”

“Yes,” grandma replies. “I’m Pauline Jones, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Stuart Milton,” the brown-haired man replies, before gesturing to the other football-shirt clad figures at the table. “This is my friend Keith and wearing the wrong shirt today is our friend Jacinta.”

“Oh, we’ll see later on today,” Jacinta- who’s wearing the striped shirt of her home team, Brighton & Hove Albion- replies, before giggling and giving my grandmother a loose, feminine handshake.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” grandma says as she exchanges a handshake with Keith. “Are you all friends of Ian, then?”

“Yep!” Jacinta replies. "Don't get to see him nearly as often as we'd like, but seeing as he lives three hours away, it's kinda understandable."

"You could always come to Cardiff," I shrug, chuckling as both grandma and Jacinta give me a playful whack on each shoulder!

"Well, either way, I'm glad we caught up this Christmas," Stuart says. "Oh, that reminds me- I got you your drink." I let out a long sigh as Stuart places a bottle of red-coloured Fanta down in front of me.

"...Another in-joke," I say to grandma, who just smiles and nods as I sip the extremely sweet-tasting soda.

"I'm guessing if you're in London at this time of year, you were here to see your parents?" Stuart asks.

"Eesh, this sounds like a sensitive topic," Keith says with a grimace. "We can give you some privacy if you'd prefer?"

"You're a friend," I say. "I don't mind. And yes, I was here to see family."

"I guessed from the tone of your text," Stuart sighs. "Didn't go well, then?"

"Put it this way- I kept expecting to hear the Eastenders theme tune," I sigh, which earns a snort of laughter followed by a playful hug from Jacinta.

"Aww," the transgendered girl sighs as I (and grandma) recap the events of the last 24 hours.

"...So, yeah," I say, taking a deep breath and finishing off my drink. "Not my best ever Christmas. Then again, can't say I've ever had a GOOD one."

"Mate," Stuart sighs. "Wish there was more I could do. Just hope getting it off your chest has helped."

"A little," I shrug. "Thanks for the 'getting off your chest' pun by the way."

"Hey, if anyone's allowed to make that joke, it's me," Stuart laughs. "And if you ever need to talk, I'm only ever a Facebook message away, don't forget that. I might not be the fountain of wisdom my wife is but I can always lend an ear."

"Same applies for me," Jacinta says, giving me another gentle hug.

"Me too, mate," Keith says. "'Course, with kids 2 and 3 on the way, my free time's gonna go out the window, but that's what friends are for."

"And I'm sure you know my wife's catchphrase by now," Stuart chuckles.

"What catchphrase is that?" Grandma asks.

"You can never have too many friends," the four of us- and, much to my surprise, a few people from surrounding tables- say simultaneously.

"Well I would've thought that was obvious!" Grandma says with a snort of laughter. "We should let you go, your match is about to start."

"Actually, I- I kinda need to use the toilet first," I say.

"Me too," Stuart says as we both get up and head to the coffee's shop's facilities.

"Huh," Jacinta remarks. "I thought it was only women who go to the toilet in groups?" Stuart and I both roll our eyes, before looking at each other and nodding.

"GIRL," we respond simultaneously, before sharing a fist bump and heading to the toilet.

When we enter the restroom, I pause briefly as Stuart steps up to a urinal, unzips his fly and proceeds to pee in a way that obviously comes naturally to him, but I know for a fact wasn't an option as recently as two years ago.

"Problem?" Stuart asks. "Kinda crossing some boundaries here, mate."

"Huh?" I ask, before grimacing as I realise what Stuart's saying. "Oh, umm, sorry, just- just need to use a cubicle, you know... And not, umm, not because I need a crap-"

"You don't need to tell me," Stuart shrugs. "Betting you've got a thousand questions, and I am happy to answer them, but maybe in private, eh?"

"Umm, sure," I say as I sit down in my cubicle and wince at the very feminine sound of my urine tinkling against the bowl. "Do you have any operations left at all?"

"Nope," Stuart replies. "All done now. You haven't even started yet, have you?"

"Apart from T, I'm completely 'unaltered'," I reply. "Not even eighteen yet, heh."

"Ooh, of course," Stuart says. "Your birthday on the 30th, isn't it?"

"Yep," I say as I leave the cubicle and wash my hands. "Two days earlier than it should be, if you believe my mum, heh."

"Mate, your eighteenth falls on a Saturday," Stuart retorts. "Sounds like you were born on exactly the right day to me!"

"I guess," I laugh.

"Mine was a Sunday," Stuart says as we reenter the main area of the coffee shop. "Trust me, I know. Doing anything special?"

"Probably just hanging out with friends," I reply, which prompts a pause from my older friend. "...Stu?"

"Hmm?" Stuart replies. "Oh, umm, nothing. Gotta get to the match now, don't want to miss the best team in London batter the best- well, only- team from Brighton, heh!"

"You and Jacinta got a bet going?" I ask, making Stuart wince as a familiar glamorous woman approaches us pushing a stroller containing a tiny baby girl, who is, naturally, wearing a tiny Chelsea shirt.

"He doesn't," Jamie says, "because he actually wants to come home tonight."

"...And Jacinta wouldn't take the bet because it's obvious Chelsea are going to win," Stuart says smugly.

"And she has infinitely more sense than you, BOY," Jamie says. "I would say 'no offence, Ian', but offence is kinda intended, heh!"

"Offence taken," I say, before sharing a quick hug with the blonde transwoman.

"Ah, and you must be Ian's grandmother!" Jamie chuckles. "I'm Jamie, Jamie-Lee Milton."

"Oh, even I know who you are!" Grandma chuckles as she shares a handshake with the young mother.

"I hope Stuart wasn't being a nuisance and they didn't spend the whole time talking about football?" Jamie asks.

"Actually he is a very mature and kind young man," grandma says. "I'm glad Ian has a good male role model to look up to." The subtext of grandma's compliment is obvious- that she wishes that my biological family could be even a fraction as supportive and loving as my 'adopted' family.

"Aww, that's so kind of you to say!" Jamie coos, cuddling her blushing husband. "Just hope it isn't another five months before we see you again in London. I mean, okay, you're not going out with Ella anymore, but you can always come to see us, all you have to do is ask."

"For my birthday at the start of February, if nothing else," Jacinta says.

"...I'll think about it," I say. "Okay, I'll almost certainly come."

"Yay!" Jacinta giggles. "Always wanted a little brother, heh!"

"We'll let you head back to Cardiff," Jamie says. "Think Olivia's starting to get a little restless in the noise, heh. And no, I am NOT taking her into the stadium!"

"A little treasure like that?" Grandma asks. "I should hope not!"

"Aww, thanks!" Jamie giggles. "Oh, and send my love to your friends and your girlfriend in Cardiff, okay Ian?"

"Will do," I say, before an idea pops into my head. "Actually, before I go, can I ask just one tiny favour, please?"

The following morning, I'm back in my home- my HOME- in Cardiff, relaxing on my sofa with my girlfriend snuggled up next to me, watching a video on my phone.

"Hi Chloe!" The image of Jamie calls out from my phone. "Hope you had a great Christmas, that you're not working TOO hard, and that this awesome young man isn't being too much of a pain! If he is, give me a call and I'll sort him out, hehe!"

"Oh my god, that is SO cool," Chloe gushes as we play the video a dozen times back-to-back.

"Better than any of my other presents?" I ask.

"Well, duh!" Chloe giggles. "I just wish I could give you something that could make up for the Christmas you had at your parents'..."

"Well, it IS my birthday in three days," I say.

"Oh don't worry," Chloe chuckles. "I'm gonna be spoiling you rotten on your birthday! But that's then, and this is now..." I smile as Chloe once again grabs my hand and positions it on her thigh, and as I discovered on Christmas Day, I much prefer the feel of tights when they have her legs inside them.

"I'm- I'm going to go to the shops," grandma suddenly announces from the kitchen, startling me and Chloe. "Do you two want anything?"

"Umm, no, I'm fine, thank you Mrs. Jones," Chloe replies.

"Do- do you want me to come with you?" I ask.

"And leave your guest all alone? Don't be silly," grandma says with a sly smile. "I'll be back in about an hour. You two have fun!"

"Will do," I say.

Naturally, within seconds of grandma leaving the house, Chloe has practically jumped on me and forced her tongue down my throat, and moved my hand to a position MUCH higher on her thigh.

"Do- do you want-" I stammer, before being silenced by another kiss and led upstairs to my bedroom by my suddenly VERY excited girlfriend...

So, another Christmas has come and gone, as has another confrontation with my 'family', but I don't feel nearly as stressed as I did this time last year, as I have far more in my life than I did before. I have an amazing girlfriend, friends who are stronger than ever, and a support network in London who have shown that you don't need to be related by blood to be a real family.

My parents can take a running jump for all I care. I don't need them. I'm almost certainly better off without them. And with or without them, my life is mine to live the way I see fit. I'm male, I'm nerdy, and I love every second of being those two things.

My name has always been Ian. I have always been a boy. And my life has only just begun!

“Thanks for letting me swap my shifts again,” I say as I switch off the shop’s lights and step outside, allowing Dean to lock up the shop.

“Yeah, like I’m gonna let you work on your eighteenth birthday,” Dean says with a snort of laughter. “You have a good one, mate. See you a week tomorrow, okay?”

“Sure,” I say, waving goodbye to my supervisor before climbing onto the back seat of Rob’s car, where my girlfriend- or, to be more accurate, lover- greets me with a long kiss.

“Hey, sexy!” Chloe giggles, before giving me another kiss.

“Get. A. Room,” Lee moans from the front passenger seat of the car.

“Just because your girlfriend’s 110 kilos and made of metal,” Chloe retorts. “And if you tried to snog her, she’s cut your tongue off and/or electrocute you!”

“One hundred and SEVEN kilos,” Lee retorts. “And sometimes love hurts.”

“Wondered why you were walking with a limp the last few days,” Neil says, earning laughs from the rest of us as I slyly slip my hand onto Chloe’s nylon-covered thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze as she slides a hand into the back pocket of my jeans.

It’s only been two days since Chloe and I had sex for the first time, but in that time, we’ve become virtually inseparable. Even grandma seems happy for us to be ‘left alone’, sometimes for hours at a time. We’re still not allowed to sleep together at my house- and sleeping at Chloe’s house is not an option for obvious reasons- but our connection, and dare I say it, our love is stronger than ever. It definitely helps that Chloe likes hanging out with the rest of my friends, even more than her own college friends, it seems. And, obviously, Chloe doesn’t have a problem with my ‘alternative’ equipment- as her reaching for and gently scratching a much more sensitive area of my anatomy proves.

The five of us (plus Neil and Rob’s disinterested girlfriends) spend the rest of the evening at Lee’s house tinkering and playing with Chwilen, before our lifts arrive to take us home just after 7pm- and much to my chagrin, Chloe’s lift is the first to pick her up.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Chloe giggles, before dramatically wrapping her arms around my neck and rising onto her tiptoes to give me a long, deep kiss. Normally, she wouldn’t be this ‘passionate’ in saying goodbye to me, but today she’s being given a lift home by her older sister- and the look of disgust on her face is almost as great as the one she gave me when we first met on the Barry beach four months ago. Somewhat disappointingly, Chloe and Hannah’s younger sister, who is sat on the back seat of the car, has an equally disgusted look on her face, but I quickly put any negative thoughts out of my mind as I concentrate on the good Barnard girl, who is obviously very happy to be around me!

“See you tomorrow,” I say, giving Chloe another kiss before waving goodbye to her as she’s driven away.

“Huh, see the ‘wicked not-step-sister’ is still giving you the evils,” Lee snorts.

“Fuck her,” I shrug. “She wants to stay in the past, let her. Chloe’s the only member of that family I care about, anyway.”

“Good man,” Lee says, patting me on my shoulder. “We’ll be round tomorrow at about 11am, okay? Give you a chance to sleep in a bit. Don’t want to, you know, break the stereotype and get up early on your eighteenth birthday, do you?”

“Even though technically, it’s also my second?” I retort.

“Good point,” Lee says, giving me another shoulder pat as grandma’s car pulls up. “See you tomorrow, birthday boy!”

“Cheers,” I reply, before climbing into grandma’s car, fastening my seatbelt and letting out a long sigh as we drive home.

“How was work, Ian?” Grandma asks.

“It was okay,” I shrug. “Busy, what with the sale… Probably gonna be busier tomorrow, heh.”

“I hope you thanked your supervisor for allowing you to take tomorrow off,” grandma says.

“Of course,” I reply. “Can’t believe how excited I am about it, heh!”

“Well it is the most important birthday of them all,” grandma says. “Your last day as a child, from tomorrow you’ll be a man, not a boy.”

“Two years ago I never thought I’d ever be a boy,” I say, making grandma chuckle happily.

“Well that’s very true,” grandma says. “And I’m sure some people will say that you should have become a woman tomorrow, not a man, but their opinions don’t count, do they?”

“Not even slightly,” I say with a confident smile as we head home.

I spend the rest of the night relaxing, catching up with some coursework for my next term at college and playing on my Xbox before heading to bed just after 10:30pm. Unsurprisingly, I have difficulty drifting off to sleep, though this isn’t solely due to excitement about tomorrow.

Grandma’s words about becoming a man instead of a woman have resonated with me. If it wasn’t for taking a chance two years ago and going to live with grandma, it would be Kayleigh-Ann celebrating HER eighteenth birthday tomorrow, rather than me. I involuntarily shudder as I imagine what ‘my’ birthday would be like- waking up early, showering thoroughly and shaving off any and all body hair before pulling on feminine underwear, dousing myself with perfume and probably followed by a cute skirt and top- probably similar to the clothes Chloe was wearing today. I’d head downstairs, eat a disgusting vegan breakfast before opening my presents- clothes, shoes, make-up, perfume, dancewear, jewellery…

After opening my presents, Abbey-Gayle and her gang would inevitably show up and I’d be taken to a fancy salon- probably the one Georgie works at- for an expensive makeover and hair styling, before heading home and changing into a short, revealing dress and spending the rest of the night partying, probably at Charlotte Hartley’s house, almost certainly having to fend off boys that my ‘friends’ would fire at me from all angles. And then, I’d go home, and spend the rest of my birthday biting my stuffed giraffe’s leg and screaming myself to sleep.

Fortunately, when I wake up, my reality is very different from that nightmare. After I get out of bed, I shower, but the only part of my body that I shave is my face. The only scent that apply to my body is my Lynx deodorant that I spray into my hair-covered armpits. My underwear consists of a pair of jockey shorts, a pair of thick black socks and- in my only concession to my old life- a thick vest that ‘flattens’ my chest. A pair of black jeans and a smart cream-coloured sweater follow, before I head downstairs to be greeted by the smell of bacon frying.

“Good morning, birthday boy!” Grandma says with a cheerful grin. “Or should I say, birthday man?”

“Trust me, either will be fine,” I say with a chuckle. “More than fine, heh!”

“What time will your friends be coming around?” Grandma asks as she slides a delicious-smelling bacon sandwich under my nose.

“About eleven,” I reply. “Dunno if Chloe will be around earlier.”

“Are you expecting anyone else today?” Grandma asks.

“Umm, no…” I reply. “Not really, anyway. Not unless mum, well, you know…”

“Of course,” grandma whispers. “Well, eat up, you’ve got a lot of presents to unwrap!”

“Now THAT I can do!” I giggle as I wolf down my sandwich.

Once my stomach is full, grandma leads me through to the living room, where- just like five days ago- my usual sofa is covered by a large clutch of brightly-coloured gifts, all of which are mine, and many of which have the number ‘18’ prominently displayed on them. I waste no time in opening them, revealing similar gifts to five days ago- clothes, deodorant, videogames and board games, but once I’m done, grandma surprises me by producing one final present from the side of her chair.

“This came in the post for you yesterday,” grandma explains. “It’s from your mother.” I hesitate before even touching the package- the last time I spoke to my mother, we at least managed to part on civil terms, but hardly friendly ones. She told me- to my face- that she wasn’t sure whether or not she’d be prepared to accept me as her son, and now here I am, being expected to accept a present from her? One very, very important question immediately springs to mind when I see the package, which obviously contains clothing.

“Who is the present for?” I ask. “Ian, or Kayleigh-Ann?”

“…Do you see anyone in this room called ‘Kayleigh-Ann’?” Grandma retorts. “If the present was for someone by that name, I wouldn’t be giving it to you, because your name isn’t Kayleigh-Ann.” I smile as I take the present from my grandmother and unwrap it, revealing a new designer raincoat- but a black, unisex one.

“That’s a very nice coat,” grandma says. “You’ve needed a new one. What does the card say?”

“…To my child on THEIR eighteenth birthday,” I sigh. “Guess she’s no closer to her decision than she was at Christmas…”

“Well- well the presents was addressed to ‘Ian’,” grandma counters.

“Which she could have justified by telling herself that it’s my current legal name,” I say. “Emphasis on the ‘current’. She- she hasn’t called, has she?”

“…No,” grandma admits. "Also... Also, there's something else you should know."

"Umm, okay," I say.

"Your parents- well, your father, really, he- he set up a trust fund for you," grandma explains. "That they would have turned over to you today."

"'Would have'?" I ask. "Guess there's no point in asking why they haven't..."

"I'm only saying this as I don't want you to be kept in the dark," grandma says. "But it would've been a significant amount. Possibly even five figures." I exhale slowly as this information slowly sinks in- that IS a significant amount of money. It'd pay for driving lessons, a car, maybe even a whole year of uni...

"It could be six figures, and I wouldn't accept it," I say defiantly. "Not with the conditions he would've put on it."

"If you say so," grandma says. "I'm not suggesting you ask him for it by any means, but if that money is set aside for you, you might be able to legally challenge for it."

"...I'll think about it," I say with a sigh. "Notice as well there's no presents from Stuart or any of the London guys."

“Well- well maybe they’re coming in the post,” grandma says in a surprisingly hasty voice. “You might get them today or early next week, it usually takes the post some time to get back to normal after Christmas.”

“Wonder why they wouldn’t have just sent them with my Christmas presents,” I say. “It’s only five days, after all. Oh well, I mean, it’s not like I demanded presents from them, heh.”

“Well I’m sure they’ll want to do something nice for you anyway,” grandma says, before the doorbell suddenly rings. “This will probably be the postman now, actually!” I smile as I jump up and open the front door, receiving a pleasant surprise- the person at the door most certainly isn’t a postal worker, and even if she was, most postal workers don’t greet their customers with long, deep kisses!

“Happy birthday, hunky MAN!” Chloe giggles as she gives me another kiss.

“Is it the postman, Ian?” Grandma asks.

“Better,” I say, returning to the living room hand-in-hand with my girlfriend.

“Ah, hello Chloe!” Grandma says with a warm smile. “Good of you to come over so early.”

“Thanks,” Chloe replies shyly, leading to an awkward silence filling the room.

“Oh, I just remembered,” grandma suddenly announces. “I need to get more bread for your big birthday lunch. I’m going to go down the shops, I should be an hour, and no, you don’t need to come with me. Will you two be alright by yourselves?” Somehow, I suppress a giggle as Chloe and I exchange a knowing glance.

“We’ll be fine,” I assure my grandmother.

Needless to say, less than thirty seconds after grandma’s car pulls away from the house, Chloe and I are up in my bedroom, hastily stripping each other before collapsing on my bad in a mass of writhing limbs...

“Yes, oh yes…” I babble in a barely-coherent voice as I lay back on my bed, my body covered in sweat after our 'workout'.

“I repeat- happy birthday,” my girlfriend says, leaning over me to give me a long, lazy kiss before pulling back on the clingy skirt and top she wore to my house. “You seen my tights?”

“Umm, uh,” I moan, trying to shake the orgasmic fog out of my head. “Umm, here.” I scoop the discarded legwear off my floor, musing on how warm and soft it feels even without Chloe’s legs inside.

“Hey! Birthday boy!” Chloe says, snapping her fingers in front of my face and breaking me out of my ‘trance’. “You gonna fondle those all day or can I put them back on?”

“How would that stop me from fondling them?” I ask, giggling as Chloe blows me a very un-ladylike raspberry! “I was just remembering- ehh, never mind.”

“No, go on,” Chloe says.

“I was just- I was just remembering when I was back in my old bedroom,” I explain. “In London. On Christmas Day. All of my- well, all of ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s old clothes were still in their drawers.”

“…Including a tights drawer, right?” Chloe asks, making me grin lustfully as she stretches the clingy legwear over her slender legs.

“Yeah,” I muse.

“Don’t tell me you actually tried a pair on?” Chloe asks. “Because, you know, if you did, I wouldn’t think any the less of you… I mean, it must’ve been pretty stressful, being back there…”

“I picked out a pair,” I explain, “and all I could think was ‘I wish Chloe’s legs were in these’.”

“D’aww,” Chloe coos, leaning in to give me another kiss. “That’s so sweet. Total bullshit, but still sweet anyway.” This time, it’s Chloe’s turn to giggle as I blow a raspberry at her.

“Are you allowed to accuse your boyfriend of bullshitting on his birthday?” I retort.

“Yes,” Chloe bluntly replies. “Ugh, think I hear your grandmother’s car pulling up… You’d better get dressed, quick!”

“Okay,” I reply, grabbing my underwear, my jeans and my sweatshirt and pulling them in less time than it takes Chloe to adjust her tights and pull her hair back into a ponytail- something that makes me smirk and earns me a playful smack on my arm!

“Show off,” Chloe giggles as we head downstairs and park ourselves on our sofa. “Kinda wish we could, you know, sleep together? As in actually sleep, not, well, you know…”

“Yeah, I know,” I sigh.

“To be able to wake up cuddling each other…” Chloe sighs happily as she relaxes into my arms.

“That’d be nice,” I say. “And it’ll happen. Eventually.” I try not to let out another sigh as the front door opens and grandma enters the house, carrying her groceries. “Though it might be a while…” Chloe flashes me a quick smile as our ‘alone time’ ends and I jump off the sofa to help grandma put away her shopping (despite her protest that I shouldn’t be doing housework on my birthday).

Rob, Neil and Lee (and, of course, their presents- all of which are ‘nerdy’) arrive a short while later and we spend the whole day immersed in pure nerdiness. A Star Trek Discovery marathon is followed by a series of Halo matches and then a Worms W.M.D. free-for-all, which I- and all of my friends, Chloe included- agree is the perfect way to spend the day. It’s pointed out more than once that this isn’t any different from what we do on any other Saturday, but after my mental image of ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s birthday, I’m more than happy with this.

The three guys leave the ‘party’ just before 5pm, once again leaving me alone on the sofa with my girlfriend while grandma makes us all a cup of tea.

“So…” Chloe asks as she once again relaxes into my arms. “Did you enjoy your quote-unquote party?”

“Yeah,” I reply. “Yeah, I did. Sure, it wasn’t big and fancy, but all the important people were there, and that’s what matters the most.”

“D’aww,” Chloe coos. “Even though you’re drinking tea and not beer?”

“Plenty of time for that later,” I shrug, which for some reason, earns a smug grin from my girlfriend.

“If it was me, I’d want a HUGE party for my eighteenth,” Chloe says. “Fancy dresses, fancy food, fancy wine, fancy everything.”

“GIRL,” I tease, giggling as Chloe gives me a gentle elbow in my ribs.

“Hannah’s 18th last year was Doctor Who themed,” Chloe explains. “Helps that she actually shares a birthday with the show, November 23rd. She dressed up as Amy Pond, me and Rosie dressed up as other companions, her boyfriend at the time dressed up as Matt Smith, even Matt- our brother, Matt- got into the spirit of things, and he hates science-fiction.”

“…I’m kinda more interested to know if you still have the costume you wore,” I say, giggling as another elbow finds its way into my ribs.

“I was dressed as Clara Oswald,” Chloe explains. “Which was just a tartan skirt and a jumper, so yes, I do still have it, but the only part that was really a ‘costume’ was the wig. I’m probably showing more leg now, actually.”

“And for that, I am very grateful,” I say, which this time earns me a kiss instead of an elbow.

“My points, if I can get back to making it,” Chloe says, “is that for my eighteenth, I wouldn’t just want, but I’d expect to be treated like a total princess.”

“You’d deserve to be,” I say, earning another kiss.

“And I get that it might be different for boys,” Chloe says, “but surely you want to be treated as, well, a prince?”

“I spent most of my life just wanting to be treated as a boy,” I reply. “What I had today is still in the ‘better than my wildest dreams’ area.”

“Maybe you can afford to start dreaming bigger?” Chloe suggests. “What you had today is the absolute least you deserve.”

“Bit late to do anything about it now,” I shrug. “Though it’s New Year’s Eve tomorrow, I suppose we could throw a party for that?”

“Well, yeah, we could,” Chloe says. “And it’d be nice not to spend it listening to Matt and Han having a go, but it wouldn’t be YOUR party.”

“Eh, like I said, bit late to do anything about it now,” I shrug, before frowning in confusion as Chloe sits up from my embrace and listens as a car pulls up outside. “…Chloe?” Before my girlfriend can answer me, a knock comes from the front door, and when I answer it, I actually gasp in shock at the sight that greets me.

“Happy birthday, mate!” Stuart- who I thought was 150 miles away in London- says, giving me a firm handshake. Behind him is a stretch limo with a banner on the side that simply reads ’18 today’, and on the back seat of the limo are Rob, Neil and Lee, all of whom have wide grins on their faces.

“What- what are you doing here?” I ask. “What is THIS?”

“What does it look like?” Stuart chuckles. “Didn’t you wonder why you didn’t get any presents from anyone in London?”

“I- I thought it was in the post…” I mumble as Chloe suddenly appears at my side, literally buzzing with energy. “Did- did you know about this?”

“Maybe!” Chloe excitedly squeaks. “Hold the car, we’ll be down once Ian looks a bit more ‘appropriate’, hehe!”

“We’re not going anywhere!” Stuart laughs as I’m dragged upstairs by my girlfriend.

“So what- what exactly is going on?” I ask as I’m forced to strip down to my underwear and handed my most fashionable shirt and trousers.

“What’s going on,” Chloe says as she also strips to her underwear and pulls a plastic bag out from underneath my bed, “is that it’s your eighteenth birthday today, and we are going to celebrate it!”

“I thought that was what we were doing?” I ask.

“Well- maybe,” Chloe shrugs, withdrawing a slinky black dress and a pair of high-heeled shoes from the bag and changing into them, before touching up her make-up and fussing with her long ginger hair. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t make even more of a fuss over you, does it?”

“Umm, I guess,” I say, slipping my feet into my poshest pair of lace-up shoes and heading downstairs to where Stuart is waiting with grandma.

“Ah, about time!” My grandmother chuckles. “You two have fun tonight, and don’t come home too early!”

“Bu- what?” I reply.

“And don’t worry about church tomorrow,” grandma says. “Reverend Stubbs was eighteen once, I’m sure he- and the other ‘he’- will understand. Now go, and have fun!” I barely have time to nod before Stuart and Chloe frog march me into the limo, where I’m handed a glass of chilled champagne.

“Okay,” I say with a long sigh. “Can I please get an explanation of what’s happening?”

“Ian Freeman: world champion of missing the bloody obvious!” Lee toasts with his own glass of champagne.

“We are taking you to your surprise birthday party!” Rob explains with a grin.

“So this morning and afternoon- what, they didn’t count?” I ask.

“Nope!” Neil replies.

“Basically,” Stuart finally explains, “when you were in London on Tuesday, you seemed so down after what happened with your parents that I thought it was about time you deserved a ‘win’, a real, proper ‘win’. So, I got in touch with your grandmother and your girlfriend-“

“-Which TOTALLY made me freak out when I realised who was calling, hehe!” Chloe squeaks.

“…I can confirm that’s true,” Stuart says with a smirk. “So I got in touch, made some arrangements, booked a hotel- not an easy thing to do this close to the New Year- and we’re giving you the party you deserve. Had to pull a few strings, but my little brother doesn’t turn eighteen every day, you know?”

“God, this is- this is too much,” I say, my head spinning thanks to the whole situation. “What did your wife say when you told her that you were coming to Cardiff?”

“It was her idea!” Stuart laughs. “Partly her idea, anyway. She’d be here too, but didn’t want to leave Olivia overnight.”

“…This is STILL too much,” I insist.

“No. It. Isn’t,” Stuart says. “Sit back, relax and enjoy. You’ll never have another eighteenth birthday, so you need to make the most of this one!”

“And we’re gonna make sure you do!” Chloe giggles excitedly.

A short while later, the limo pulls up outside the posh city centre hotel that Stuart has hired for the evening- though mercifully, it stops outside the side entrance rather than the front entrance.

“Normally I’d have gone for the whole ‘red carpet’ thing,” Stuart explains as we get out of the car. “But I get that’s kinda not your thing, so I’ve gone for ‘grey concrete’ instead, heh!”

“And I do appreciate it,” I say. “I appreciate all of this, actually. I mean, like, a year ago, you didn’t even know who I was, now you’ve driven all this way, you’re throwing me this party, I- I don’t know how I’m going to repay you for this, heh.”

“I earn a lot more money than you, don’t worry about it,” Stuart says, making me snort with laughter. “And my birthday’s March 2nd, you’ve got my wife on Facebook, you’ll figure something out!”

“Yeah,” I laugh as we walk into the function room of the hotel, where I’m immediately greeted by several happy faces, many of whom I know personally, a few of whom I know only through their public profile and a few I’m seeing for the first time. I don’t need to force a smile on my face as the twenty-odd people all yell ‘happy birthday’ as they lay eyes on me, though mere moments later, an unwelcome thought burrows its way into mind, a thought I can’t shake no matter how hard I try- if my mother were to see this now, she’d be ecstatic.

The crowd contains no fewer than four of the Angels, the modelling clique I was forced to aspire to while I was growing up. Sure, I knew one of them- Abbey-Gayle- before she became an Angel, and I know that the other three who are here (Alice, Hannah and Kelly) are all very friendly, but the fact remains that they are very much celebrities. Their presence here would normally attract the attention of the national press (something Stuart has mercifully taken steps to prevent), and two years ago, I’d be coerced into ‘networking’ and trying to land myself representation with their agency. I know deep down inside myself that I’m under no such obligation tonight, that the only reason I’m here is to kick back and have fun, but no matter how hard I try, there’s a little voice at the back of mind urging me to take advantage of this unique opportunity. Even worse, I know the voice will angrily chastise me if I don’t…

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god!” Chloe- who’s almost crushing my hand, she’s so excited- squeaks as she sees the assembled faces approach and exchange handshakes and hugs with me.

“Happy birthday, Mr. Adult!” Nikki- one of the women with whom I did a photoshoot for a Sunday newspaper earlier in the year- says as she gives me a tight hug. “Got a few apologies, I’m afraid- Jamie and the other Angels with kids obviously couldn’t make it, but send their love, Out of Heaven have been called to a last-minute TV recording today so wouldn’t have got here in time, and Jessica and Paige are on flights but would’ve come if they were available."

“Honestly, I’m grateful anyone came at all,” I say, desperately trying to calm myself down. “All this way, in the cold…”

"Bringing presents with us too!" Nikki giggles, gesturing to the pile of presents on a nearby table, which I'm led to and immediately start unwrapping, revealing very fancy gifts, but all 'appropriate' ones- male fashion, aftershave kits, videogames, even a little booze- similar to what I got earlier in the day, but no less welcome.

"Honestly, thank you all so much," I say with a happy grin after unwrapping the last present.

“Speech!” Lee says, making me grown and everyone else laugh and cheer at my expense.

“Because you know I love public speaking,” I say to the sarcastic young man, who grins evilly. “Okay… Thank you all for coming, especially those of you who have come a long way as I know there are people here who’ve come from London who I’ve hardly even met before. But it really does mean a lot to me that I can spend today with the people who matter the most to me. Those of you who know me know that I’m being serious when I say that I consider a lot of you to be more like family than my ‘real’ family, so thank you, thank you all for coming. Umm… Cheers!”

“Cheers!” The crowd toasts, mercifully satisfied by my speech.

“Longer speech!” Lee shouts, earning giggles from the crowd.

“How about a short one,” I reply. “Piss off, Lee!” This ‘speech’ earns even louder laughter from the crowd, especially as Lee responds with a mock bow.

“Everyone not called Lee: have fun!” Stuart announces, prompting the music to start and everyone to have fun mingling, dancing and chatting. “As for you, young man, as your pseudo ‘big brother’, allow me to be the first to get you a beer! Got a particular brand you want?”

“I don’t mind,” I shrug. “What are you having?”

“I’m usually a Fosters man,” Stuart replies.

“Sounds goo-“ I say, before hesitating as a number of things suddenly connect in my brain. Fosters is a beer from Australia, and a quick glance around the room reveals that it isn’t the only thing- or person- from Australia here tonight. “Umm… Actually, I’ll- I’ll have a Carlsberg, please.”

“Carlsberg it is,” Stuart shrugs. “Why, you got something against Auss- oh.”

“Yep,” I say.

“Ehh, sorry mate,” Stuart shrugs as we head to the bar for our beer. “Abbey-Gayle must’ve invited her, it’s a bit late to send her home…”

“It’s okay,” I say. “Plenty of people here, I- I can just try to ignore her for the night.”

“That’s the spirit!” Stuart laughs. “So then, tell me about this robot you’re building!”

“What, Chwilen?” I ask, smirking as I await the inevitable interruption from one of my friends- and I don’t have to wait long.

“Are you talking about my beloved behind my back?” Lee asks, earning smirks from myself and Stuart.

“I believe you’ve met Lee, captain of Team Chwilen,” I say, quietly backing away as Stuart listens intently to Lee’s tales of building the robot. Before I get the chance to mingle with anyone else, though, my arm is grabbed by a familiar dark-skinned hand and I’m dragged into a group that’s already deep in conversation.

“Three cheers for the birthday boy!” Abbey-Gayle giggles as she gives me a playful hug. “Hip hip-“

“Hooray!” The crowd- which consists of Abbey-Gayle, Brooke, George, Maisie and their boyfriends- but thankfully, NOT Ella- all cheer. After two more ‘hip hip’s and ‘hooray’s, the girls in the group all give me gentle hugs, while I get firm handshakes from all of the guys.

“Happy birthday, mate!” Reuben- Abbey-Gayle’s boyfriend- says with a grin.

“Thanks,” I reply. “I’m still astonished that you came all this way, just for me…”

“Meh, you came to London for my party, didn’t you?” Abbey-Gayle asks in her thick Caribbean accent.

“Well- yeah,” I say. “But I kinda, like, was in London for other reasons too…”

“Ehh, yeah, I get that,” Abbey-Gayle grimaces.

“Mate, there’s no reason to get all hung up on her,” Andrew- Brooke’s boyfriend- says.

“Yeah,” Maisie concurs with a sly grin. “I mean, you’ve got a new girlfriend now, ain’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” I reply. “Bu-“ before I can finish my sentence, I’m surprised by a pair of slender arms encircling my waist from behind- arms I immediately identify as belonging to the girl I saw a LOT more of earlier today.

“Thought you’d get away from me, did you?” Chloe asks, the trembling in her voice (and her hand, which grips onto mine) betraying the fact that she is obviously nervous being in the presence of this many celebrities.

“It wasn’t by choice,” I reply, making Chloe giggle as I wrap my arm around her waist. “Chloe, this is Abbey-Gayle, Brooke, Georgie, Maisie, Reuben, Andrew, Marley and Jonas, everyone, this is Chloe. And yes, I got REALLY lucky when she agreed to go out with me.”

“D’aww!” Abbey-Gayle and Chloe coo simultaneously, making both girls giggle excitedly.

“Hope you’re taking good care of him!” Abbey-Gayle giggles.

“Oh my god, totally!” Chloe immediately replies in a breathless-sounding voice.

“…I think Chloe might want a selfie,” I say, earning a playful elbow from my girlfriend as her nerves start to intensify.

“I- umm, only- only if it’s no trouble-“ Chloe stammers, before Abbey-Gayle giggles and pulls out her smartphone and takes the selfie.

“Not bad,” the dark-skinned girl shrugs. “Reckon we can do better, though. Group selfie!” The ten of us all pose for Abbey-Gayle’s camera as she takes the second picture, and while I’d normally feel stressed by the idea of appearing on an Angel’s Instagram page, today, I feel oddly relaxed about it- especially when Chloe wraps my arm around her waist again.

“Oh my god, this is SO amazing!” Chloe squeaks, bouncing up and down on her heels. “I can’t believe I’m actually at a party with Angels!”

“And your boyfriend,” I remind the ginger-haired girl, who giggles and starts to blush with embarrassment.

“So, did you two meet at college?” Maisie asks.

“Actually, no,” I reply. “We do go to the same college, but only found that out AFTER we started going out, heh!”

“It’s a long story,” Chloe says. “Ian here actually asked my sister out before he asked me.” Chloe and I simultaneously roll our eyes at the mention of Hannah- an action that causes both of us to share a sly giggle.

“Fortunately, she turned me down,” I say. “Unfortunately, it was because of ‘you know what’…” I grimace as my assembled friends all frown- well, all apart from one of them, who predictably looks at me with a confused look on her tanned face.

“What’s ‘you know what’?” Georgie asks.

“Well, it’s because I’m- umm,” I mumble.

“…Because Ian used to be ‘Kayleigh-Ann’,” Maisie says, making me grimace at the use of my dead name- a grimace that only intensifies as Georgie bursts into a fit of giggles.

“OMG!” The petite, blonde-haired girl squeaks. “Like, I’d totally forgotten about that!”

“What, seriously?” I ask, before mentally chastising myself- if anyone is going to be ignorant of the past (or reality in general), Georgie is top of the list.

“I’ve forgotten a few times too,” Abbey-Gayle shrugs, surprising me.

“What, really?” I ask. “You’ve known me longer than anyone…”

“Ian, we went to school together!” Maisie reminds me. “Sure, we don’t see each other much anymore, but I knew Kayleigh-Ann for five years and even I struggle to think of you as the same person.”

“Maybe because I’m not,” I shrug. “I’ve come to realise that I was NEVER a girl. Not really. Umm… No offence.”

“None taken!” Abbey-Gayle giggles. “And no offence, but ‘Ian’ is a LOT more fun than ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ ever was, hehe!”

“None taken!” I say with a chuckle.

“So, Chloe,” Brooke says. “What d’you do at college? I know Ian’s doing graphic design, right?”

“Fashion design,” my girlfriend replies.

“Oh- no way!” Abbey-Gayle says with a grin. “There’s someone here I’ve GOT to introduce you to! Sarah!” I smile as three familiar figures approach our ‘huddle’- Nikki, the girl who ‘greeted’ me, Sarah, her wife, and sporting the widest grin of all, my friend Jacinta- who immediately wraps me in a tight hug and lifts me off my feet once she’s within arm’s reach!

“Happy birthday little brother!” Jacinta giggles, before mercifully putting me down. “Eee- sorry if I spilled any of your beer, hehe! Though I hope you haven’t got TOO pissed yet, hehe!”

“Not YET,” I reply, earning giggles from the girls and hearty chuckles from the guys.

“And you, young lady,” Nikki says to Chloe, whose eyes suddenly widen in a mixture of shock and terror. “As you’re only sixteen, I hope you’re sticking to soft drinks! I’m still on a community order, I don’t need to have to explain to your parents why you’ve come home on your hands and knees!”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I got drunk,” Chloe retorts nervously. “But I am sticking to soft drinks tonight.”

“In fairness, Chloe’s parents are actually pretty cool,” I say. “Her older brother and sister, on the other hand…”

“Reminds me a bit of my stepmother,” Sarah laughs. “Went to see her after my nineteenth, and me and Nikki got totally fucked. Like, ‘collapsing on the ground in a heap’ brand fucked. She was NOT happy about that!”

“I remember the Instagram pictures,” Jacinta giggles. “Well, before you deleted them, anyway!”

“Didn’t need THAT when applying for internships,” Sarah snorts. “Anyway, you bellowed, Abbey-Gayle?”

“I did,” the Jamaican girl replies. “Sarah, this is Chloe, Ian’s girlfriend. She’s studying fashion design at college!”

“Ooh, really?” Sarah asks, her interested suddenly piqued. “Do you have any favourite designers?”

“Donna Karan, Michael Kors,” Chloe replies. “I’m really more into costume design, though, like for TV…”

“Really?” Sarah asks, suddenly even more interested in Chloe’s college work. “Ever designed any costumes for, say, any parties? I’d love to pick your brain…”

“Ooh sounds like we’re gonna have a girly chat about clothes!” Brooke squeaks excitedly.

“Hint taken,” Reuben says with a mock sigh as he and the rest of his ‘gang’ head toward the bar.

“You too!” Georgie says, pointing a long, manicured fingernail at me. “Like, girls only!”

“Fair enough,” I say, chuckling and holding up my hands in mock surrender as I follow the boys to the bar. Even Georgie, of all people, has no problem accepting me as just another boy. Why can’t it be that easy for my parents?

Fortunately, I’m only allowed to wallow in self-pity for a few seconds before I feel another hand grab my arm- the hand of Reuben’s older brother, who I last saw mere days ago when I met Stuart before his football match.

“Alright mate?” Keith asks. “Enjoying the party so far?”

“Yeah, loving it,” I reply. “Still a bit overwhelmed by the effort everyone’s gone to, heh.”

“Like I said before the game a few days ago, we consider you family,” Keith shrugs, “we consider you to be family. You’re a hell of a lot less annoying than my ‘real’ little brother, that’s for damned sure!”

“Heard that!” Reuben yells, making his older brother chuckle.

“You were meant to!” Keith retorts. “Anyways, Ian, me, Stu and a few of the guys are going to set up in a bit, but there’s someone we reckon you ought to meet. I think you’ve probably met before but not had the chance to have a real chat, he’s… Ah! There we are. Come on.” I have an unsure look on my face as I follow Keith to a corner of the room, where a woman with gentle oriental features it talking to a ginger haired man who is obviously her boyfriend. I recognise the woman immediately, obviously- she’s Kelly Watson, one of the ‘new’ Angels added to the group last year- and while I don’t immediately recognise the man, he does look familiar somehow…

“Hey guys!” Keith says.

“Oh, hey Keith,” Kelly replies, before flashing a wide grin at me. “And hello birthday boy!”

“Hi,” I reply nervously. “Thanks- umm, thanks for coming tonight, I know it’s a long way to come…”

“It’s not THAT far,” Kelly says with a wink as she greets me with a hug.

“She’s dropping a hint that we only got back from visiting my parents on Thursday,” the ginger-haired man says, extending a hand for me to shake. “I’m Kurt, Kurt Vance. And before you ask, Canada, not America.”

“Ian Freeman, Wales, not England,” I reply. “Well… Kinda half of both but prefer Wales, heh.” I grimace as I suddenly realise that the phrase ‘half of both’ could refer to something other than my nationality. “Umm, ‘half of both’ isn’t QUITE how I wanted to put it…”

“It’s okay,” Kurt says with a smile. “I of all people should know, heh.”

“You of-?” I reply, before a closer examination of Kurt’s face reveals that his bone structure is a lot more ‘delicate’ than most men’s- almost like mine… “Wait- wait, you- you?”

“Yep,” Kurt says. “Me, me. There are more of ‘us’ than you might think, heh.”

“How long?” I ask.

“Just over three years,” Kurt replies. “Started in the summer break after my second year of university. Though high school was… Confusing. I have two older sisters, both of whom are REALLY girly, it was kinda assumed that I’d follow in their footsteps, so I was a singer in the school choir, I was on the cheerleading team…”

“Yeah, I know that feeling,” I sigh. “Did- did your parents-“

“Wouldn’t have just got back from visiting them if they’d disowned me,” Kurt shrugs, before an elbow from his girlfriend causes him to grimace. “Ahh… Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to, you know, rub it in…”

“It’s okay,” I shrug. “Have- have you had any, you know, operations? If it’s a, you know, sensitive topic then don’t-”

“Just my mastectomy,” Kurt replies, lifting the bottom of his loose, designer shirt to show me the angry-looking pink scars on his chest. “That was NOT a pleasant experience.”

“But worth it?” I ask, biting my lip as the Canadian man pauses for thought.

“…Long term, it probably will be,” Kurt muses. “Though I will confess- and I don’t care how many ‘guy points’ I lose here- I HATE needles, knives, that whole thing.”

“Given that I had my SRS at the same time you had your mastectomy,” Kelly says, crossing her legs in a dramatic fashion, “you ARE losing at least one ‘guy point’ for that!”

“And to be fair, eight months on, it really doesn’t hurt anymore,” Kurt replies. “Really can’t wait to hit the beach at summer, FINALLY going topless, heh.”

“So- so you had it done in April?” I ask.

“Yep,” Kurt replies.

“Both of us,” Kelly concurs. “That’s why we weren’t available for that photoshoot that you, Stuart and the girls did.”

“In fact, you kinda stepped in for me,” Kurt says. “So, yes, you’re welcome, heh.” I try not to let out a sigh as I’m reminded of my brush with fame from earlier in the year.

“YOU’RE welcome,” I retort. “Me and fame… We don’t really mix.”

“Eh, it’s not for everyone,” Kelly shrugs. “I did wonder why Stuart ordered the camera crew to stay home, figured it was so they’d be available for tomorrow night’s party. New Year’s Eve’s probably the second biggest of the year after Halloween.”

“Remind me to thank Stu for that,” I chuckle. “Though I guess it wasn’t too bad, well, when I wasn’t trying to fight off a horny fifteen year old girl, anyway.”

“Did you get the tattoo?” Kurt asks. “Another reason I’m glad I missed out on it, heh.”

“Couldn’t,” I reply. “Wasn’t eighteen at the time.”

“But you are now,” Kelly reminds me- and I have no response to this. Mercifully, before I can think of an excuse, the lights in the room suddenly lower and our attention is drawn to the stage, where Stuart, Keith and four of the other guys have set up a bunch of musical instruments.

“Hello Cardiff!” The band’s singer- a tall, athletic man with blonde hair and a scratchy beard- says into his microphone. “We’re here to celebrate the eighteenth birthday of a young man who’s had a few tough breaks over the years, but from now on, mate, things are gonna get better for you. You’ve got a big, BIG family here who are gonna guarantee it for you!” I try not to blush as the room cheers in agreement. “And we’re gonna celebrate tonight in the best way possible- with music!” The room cheers, which only intensifies when Keith plays the opening bars of ‘Dakota’ by the Stereophonics on his keyboard.

A series of songs by the Stereophonics, the Manic Street Preachers and even some by Tom Jones follow, during which Chloe finds her way back to me and we spend a lot of the time dancing together on the makeshift dancefloor that’s been created in the room. Everyone cuts back and has fun, myself included, and I forget all about my stresses until the opening bars of the eighth song start to play- and it’s a song I instantly recognise.

“What’s up?” Chloe asks as I suddenly stop dancing.

“I, umm, just need to sit down,” I say, scanning the crowd for the one person I’d hoped to avoid tonight and pointedly walking in the opposite direction.

“You’re not the one dancing in heels!” Chloe protests. “Come onnnn…”

“I don't know if I'm tired and I don't know if I'm ill," the lead singer sings, instantly making me grimace.

"My cheeks are turning yellow
I think I'll take another pill

Praying for the wave to come now
It must be for the fifteenth time
I've been here for much too long
This is the past that's mine

I want to fly and run till it hurts
Sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia
I want to fly and run till it hurts
Sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia
In Australia...”

“…Oh,” Chloe says, biting her lip as she leads me away to one of the table surrounding the room as I gaze up at Stuart, whose eyes have gone wider than dinner plates. While still playing his guitar, he dashes around the stage, obviously issuing instructions to the rest of the band, and mercifully, the song comes to an end a few bars later.

“We’re gonna take a quick break now,” Paul- the singer- announces as the band step away from their instruments. “Be back in twenty!” I take a deep breath as Chloe and I sit down at our table, where we’re joined after a few seconds by my ‘big brother’.

“Mate,” Stuart says with a heavy sigh. “I am so sorry about that, I chose the set list, it’s always been one of my favourite Manics songs-“

“Don’t worry about it,” I shrug as I take a swig of my beer. “No harm done in the long run.” I let out a long sigh as my reassurance is instantly proven wrong when a familiar tall, blonde and, most importantly of all, Australian figure approaches our table.

“Ah,” Stuart says as Ella nervously hangs about next to our table. “I’ll- I’ll, umm, give you some privacy…”

“Well I WON’T,” Chloe says, defiantly gripping my hand and placing it on the table, making sure Ella has a clear view of it. The look in my girlfriend’s eyes is one of pure fury, and actually makes ME wither as I see her try to drill a hole in Ella’s forehead with her eyes.

“O-kay…” Ella mumbles as she sits down opposite the two of us, and unsurprisingly, an awkward silence falls over the table.

“…I’m kinda surprised you came,” I say, breaking the silence.

“So am I,” Ella replies. “After the way you chucked me away.”

“What?” I retort.

“After the football match?” Ella asks. “In August? You just rack off back to Cardiff without even saying goodbye!”

“Did- did you not see the fight I’d had with my mum?” I ask. “I was stressed, I was emotional, I- I just wanted to get as far away from London as possible.”

“And as far away from me as possible,” Ella snorts.

“We weren’t even exclusive anyway,” I retort. “And you didn’t waste any time hooking up with someone else.”

“Look who’s talking!” Ella says, gesturing toward my girlfriend, whose facial expression sours even further.

“Hey!” Chloe and I say simultaneously.

“If you must know,” Ella sighs, “I came because Abbey-Gayle asked me to. She wanted to do something nice for you, like Stuart and the guys did. Even though you walked out on THEM as well.”

“I talked to them on Facebook,” I retort. “I bought Stuart and some of the guys Christmas presents. But I’ve got a life here in Cardiff. And honestly, I was getting a little fed up of dropping everything and jumping on a train any time you wanted a booty call!”

“Ah, another thing I don’t miss,” Ella snorts- and this is enough to push my girlfriend over the edge.

“Then maybe, if you don’t ‘miss’ it,” Chloe growls, “you should stop obsessing over it and fuck off back to London! Better yet, fuck off back to Australia and leave us in peace!”

“I think I’ll do that,” Ella sighs, standing up from the table. “Pity, you’ll never know what you could’ve had.” Oh, you bitch, I think to myself as I’m suddenly reminded of how my first ‘relationship’ ended. Ollie told me to my face that without him, I’d never have any chance of ‘becoming Ian’. I proved him wrong, dead wrong, and I’m going to prove Ella wrong as well. I give my girlfriend’s hand- which I haven’t let go the whole time I was talking to Ella- a gentle squeeze, before a wide grin spreads across my face.

“Anything other than what I have now would be a step down from what I have now,” I say, smiling as Chloe’s grip suddenly increases too. My smile stays on my face as Ella simply snorts derisively and leaves, though it quickly vanishes once she’s gone, despite my girlfriend leaning against me with a wide grin on her face.

What I just said to Ella was a barefaced lie- while I may be happier at college than I ever was at school, happier with lee and the guys than I ever was as part of Abbey-Gayle’s gang and MUCH happier with Chloe than I ever was with Ella, my life is still far from perfect- it’s almost 11pm on my eighteenth birthday and I haven’t exchanged two words with my parents all day, half of the people at my party are people I barely know and the other half have done something for me that I’ll never be able to make up for- at least, not without giving in to the lifestyle I’ve tried so desperately to avoid.

“I get why you’re so hung up on her,” Chloe sighs as I wrap an arm around her tiny waist.

“She was my first ‘real’ girlfriend,” I sigh. “But-“

“I mean, she IS a six foot tall supermodel-“ Chloe says, before grimacing as she realises she interrupted me. “…Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I shrug. “First ‘real real’ girlfriend beats first ‘real’ girlfriend any day of the week!”

“D’aww!” Chloe coos, giggling as I give her a kiss on her cheek. “As long as you had fun tonight, that’s the important thing.”

“I have,” I say, grinning as the band starts up again, this time playing The Bartender and the Thief by the Stereophonics. And apart from the confrontation with Ella, I genuinely have. I’ve become reacquainted with old friends, made new ones and watched as my Cardiff friends got on brilliantly my London friends (it was especially funny watching Lee answering questions about Chwilen all night long!).

The party eventually dissipates at around 1am, with the London-based contingent heading to pre-booked rooms in the hotel or Airbnb’s while me, Chloe and the guys get into taxis to take us back home.

"Can you turn eighteen every Saturday, please?" Neil asks, making me giggle as he climbs into the back of his taxi. "Or better yet, get them to come back to Cardiff for my eighteenth?"

"Or bring us all down to London?" Lee- who's probably drank as much as me- pleads.

"I'll see what I can do," I say as I exchange handshakes with my three friends.

"Had SERIOUS fun tonight," Rob says. "Even though 'seventeen and sober'."

"You should try getting a bit older," Lee says. "Just takes a bit of time and patience."

"...See you Monday?" Rob asks. "Assuming you don't mind being brought back down to 'normal'?"

"I'll live," I say with a grin as the taxi drives away and Stuart- who obviously looks knackered from having organised the party and spent most of the night playing his guitar- jogs up and walks with me and Chloe to our taxi.

“Again,” I say before the older man has a chance to speak, “thank you so, so much for tonight. Seriously. I’ll probably still be thanking you on my nineteenth birthday, heh!”

“Don’t mention it, honestly,” Stuart says with a friendly pat on my back. “If it helps, think of it as an excuse for me and the guys to play a gig, heh.”

“You’re really, really good,” Chloe says.

“Ah, thank you!” Stuart chuckles. “Keep trying to persuade Joshua to let us have a few hours in his recording studio, but it’s always fully booked, either with Out of Heaven or him renting it out.”

“What- what time you heading back tomorrow?” I ask.

“Whenever Mikey stops being hung over, and can take us back in his van,” Stuart shrugs. “He didn’t drink much and he’s 6’ 3” and about fifteen stone so we’ll probably be gone by about midday. Don’t like going more than 24 hours without a cuddle from my daughter, heh.”

“Aww,” Chloe coos happily.

“Well if I don’t see you before, thanks again,” I say, before leaning in for an awkward, minimal contact man hug with Stuart. “I WILL find some way of making up for tonight, I swear.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Stuart says with a grin as we climb into our taxi. “You just have fun. And take care, okay?”

“Will do!” I chuckle as the taxi pulls away and my girlfriend leans against my body with a happy sigh.

“That was AWESOME,” Chloe says in a dreamy voice. “Even better than my prom, hehe!”

“It was a hell of a lot better than mine, that’s for sure!” I giggle as the taxi takes me home.

I’m woken up the following morning by a sharp, stabbing pain in my forehead. It’s not my first hangover- thanks to some parties my mother ‘encouraged’ me to attend when I was still living in London- but this one feels oddly special, as it’s ‘Ian’s first, my first as an adult- my first as a MAN. I have a smile on my face as I shower away the headache, before dressing in a comfortable sweater and pair of jeans and heading downstairs, where grandma is already awake and making breakfast- which is a definite surprise, as at by this time on a Sunday morning, we’re both usually at church.

“Good morning, MISTER Freeman!” Grandma says with a happy chuckle. “I take it you had fun last night?”

“Umm, yeah,” I say, still trying to shake the last of the fog from my mind. “Hope I didn’t wake you last night when I got in…”

“Don’t worry, I was sound asleep,” grandma says. “I take it you have a hangover?”

“…Maybe a little one,” I half-lie.

“This will help with that,” grandma says, pushing a delicious-smelling bacon sandwich and a mug of hot, black coffee under my nose, both of which I eagerly devour. “Do you have any plans for today?”

“Not really,” I say. “Might see if Chloe or the guys are free. We’ve not got anything planned for tonight, no New Year’s party or anything.”

“Pity, now that you’re eighteen and can ‘properly’ enjoy it!” Grandma teases. “What about your friends who organised the party/ Did they go home last night?”

“Think they stayed over at the hotel,” I reply. “Heading back later this morning, I think.”

“You should see them before they go,” grandma says in a firm voice. “And thank them again for organising the party for you.”

“I’m going to be thanking them for the next ten years,” I laugh. “And each thanks will be as genuine as the first, heh.”

“I’ll give my daughter credit for one thing,” grandma says. “At least she didn’t raise you to be spoiled. And no, before you ask, she didn’t call last night.”

“She’d probably be over the moon if she found out who was at the party,” I say. “May sound selfish, but I really hope she never finds out about it.”

“Well, that’s understandable,” grandma says. “Just as long as you don’t go out of your way to avoid your London friends just to spite your mother.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t hang out with them without getting her hopes up,” I sigh. “And I DO like them. I actually made friends with another transgendered man last night, a Canadian guy called Kurt, who’s said he’ll keep in touch and give, you know, advice.”

“Wonderful!” Grandma says with a grin.

“And he’s another person I’ll probably end up owing to for the rest of my life,” I say with a tired snort of laughter. “I really wish there was something, ANYTHING I could do to, well, demonstrate how grateful I am.”

“Huh,” grandma muses. “I would’ve thought that was obvious myself, but maybe that’s just me.”

“…What do you mean?” I ask.

“You’ve always had people expecting things from you your whole life,” grandma explains. “It’s no wonder you feel a need to repay debts, even imaginary ones. Your mother expected you to be this superstar celebrity, your other grandmother expected unquestioning obedience from you, even that awful Ollie boy had his ‘expectations’.”

“Don’t remind me,” I say with a shudder. “Just wish I knew what Stuart and the guys expect of me, what they want.”

“Well that IS obvious,” grandma says. “What they from you, Ian… is you.”

“…I’m sorry?” I ask.

“That nice Jamie-Lee woman is always saying ‘you can never have too many friends’,” grandma clarifies. “Either she’s a massive hypocrite, or she genuinely wants to have Ian Freeman as her friend. Not Ian Freeman the budding celebrity, or Ian Freeman the student, or Ian Freeman the transgendered boy- or even Ian the boy. Just Ian.”

“So all I need to do to make it up to them,” I say, “is be myself?”

“It’s as easy as that,” grandma says. “Do you have the address of the hotel where your friends are staying?”

“Umm, yeah,” I say.

“Then eat up,” grandma orders with a knowing smirk on her face.

Half an hour later, we pull into the cold, quiet car park outside the hotel where I partied last night, and much to my relief, Stuart’s friend’s van- easily identifiable by the ‘Celestials’ logo on its side- is still in the same spot it was in last night. I head into the hotel’s fancy restaurant and am immediately greeted by a loud cheer from two tables. One of the table is playing host to six of the women from last night’s party, but I’m more interested in the one that has six of the men from the party sat around it- including my ‘big brother’.

“Hey mate!” Stuart says, finishing off the full English breakfast that he’d been eating. “Glad you could make it down before we got on the road. Hope you weren’t too smashed this morning, heh.”

“Maybe a little ‘cracked’,” I reply. “I just wanted-“

“Yes, yes, yes,” Stuart laughs. “And you’re welcome, honestly. We all had a lot of fun last night.” I grin as the other five men at the table- and the six women at the adjoining table- all murmur in agreement.

“Pity I only have one birthday a year,” I shrug, making the men laugh.

“Well, any time you want to come to London,” Jonathan- the drummer from last night and who I know to be a big name at Heavenly Talent- says.

“Seriously,” Stuart says. “It’d be great to have you at the parties again. And if you need a place to stay over-”

“Dibs on first Ian sleepover!” Jacinta yells from the adjacent table, earning giggles from everyone present- myself included. Grandma’s words suddenly resonate with me as I face the acceptance from the women present. They don’t care that I’m not famous, that I like watching Star Trek, or I’m a gamer- and they certainly don’t care that I’m transgendered. They only care that I’m their friend. A grin creeps across my face as I remember what I asked grandma on the ride over here.

“Well…” I say, barely keeping my happiness in check.

A short while later, Mikey’s van pulls up outside Chloe’s parents’ house and I jump out, trembling nervously as I knock on the front door. Chloe’s parents are okay with me going out with their daughter, but this might be a step too far- and if either of Chloe’s eldest siblings are home, there’s every chance I could have a REAL fight on my hands. But this is something I know I need to do- Chloe’d never forgive me if I don’t…

“What do you want?” The sneering voice of Rosie- Chloe’s 13 year old sister- asks as she opens the door and sees me standing there.

“Is your sister in?” I ask.

“Chlo!” Rosie yells into the house, pausing briefly to glower at me before being replaced at the door by my grinning girlfriend, who greets me as always with a long, deep kiss.

“Hey bae!” Chloe giggles. “Sorry about the brat.”

“Meh, I’ve faced worse,” I shrug.

“My other sister, for one,” Chloe snorts. “Matt and Han are both out and Rosie knows when she’s not wanted, so we can hang out here, if you want?”

“That’d be good,” I reply. “But…” I grin as I gesture behind me to Mikey’s van, and behind that to a car containing Nikki, Sarah, Jacinta, Hannah Dexter and an empty seat.

“Wh- oh my god!” Chloe squeaks. “Are- are you going to- to London!?”

“You can never have too many friends?” I ask with a smug grin. “Invited myself to the Angels’ New Year party. And that includes you as well. If, of course, you-“

“Mum!” Chloe yells excitedly, bouncing up and down on her toes.

“What is it?” Mrs. Barnard asks her trembling daughter. “Oh, hi Ian, do you want to come in?”

“Actually, I was wondering if Chloe wanted to come out,” I say nervously.

“Where are you thinking of going?” Chloe’s mum asks.

“London!” Chloe squeaks. “Ian’s got us invited to the-“

“Whoa, wait a minute,” Chloe’s mother says. “London? By yourself?”

“I wouldn’t be by myself,” Chloe retorts. “I’d be going with Ian. And all the Angels would be there, and-“

“Hang on, calm down,” Mrs. Barnard says sternly. “Going to a party here in Cardiff is one thing, but I’m not comfortable with you going all the way to London!”

“But mum…” Chloe pleads, visibly deflating.

“Chloe, you’re sixteen, you’re still legally a child, you need to remember that,” Mrs. Barnard says, causing me to have an unpleasant flashback to what my ‘bad’ grandmother said to me at Christmas. “You’ve only just met these people. Okay, Ian’s shown that he’s trustworthy, but it’s still too far. Maybe next year.”

“I’ll still be a child when I’m seventeen,” Chloe pouts.

“I’ve made my decision,” Mrs. Barnard says firmly, making me squirm. “I’m sorry.”

“But I can definitely go next year?” Chloe asks.

“…Okay, fine,” Mrs. Barnard says. “And if you save up and get any free time, you and Ian can go to London together during the day in the New Year if you want. But during the DAY. No overnighters. Okay?”

“Okay,” Chloe mumbles, before sighing as her mother goes back indoors. “I’m sorry, Ian…”

“It’s okay,” I sigh. “I’ll let Stu and the guys know that I won’t be going.”

“W- wait, what?” Chloe asks.

“I wouldn’t want to go if I can’t go without you,” I say softly.

“Aww!” Chloe coos. “I don’t want to be the reason you miss out on what will be THE best party of the year! 2017 AND 2018, hehe!”

“I’d still rather stay here with you,” I say, even though deep down, I’m already feeling a pang of guilt at letting Stuart down…

“And make me feel guilty?” Chloe asks. “Go. To. The. Party. I’ll still be here when you get back. Hopefully with a load of Angel and Out of Heaven selfies!”

“…If you’re sure,” I say, grinning as Chloe nods and gives me a kiss. “I’m missing you already…”

“D’aww!” Chloe coos. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Sure,” I say, sharing another kiss with my girlfriend. “Actually… Didn’t you say that your sister’s an Angels fan?”

“Yeah, why?” Chloe asks, before glancing at the blonde-haired figure of Hannah Dexter and grinning. “Oh Rosie…”

Despite my disappointment, I still have a smile on my face as I head back to Mikey’s van.

“She didn’t go for it, then?” Stu asks as I climb onto the seat next to him. “Guess it was a long shot. Maybe next time.”

“Oh- her parents have basically guaranteed next time,” I say. “So I’m not too disappointed. And before you say anything, me coming along anyway was her idea, she pretty much threatened me if I didn’t heh.”

“Speaking of threats, had another text from Krys asking when we were getting home,” Mikey says, gesturing to his phone. “Why were you speaking to the girls just now?”

“Watch,” I say, pointing to Chloe’s front door- or rather, to the tall, elegant form of Hannah Dexter, who is walking up the path to the door. I don’t even bother to suppress a giggle as Hannah knocks on the door and Chloe’s sister answers- and my giggle becomes a full-blown roar of laughter as all the colour drains from Rosie’s cheeks and her eyes go as wide as dinner plates. The two women (who are quickly joined by Chloe) spend a few seconds chatting and taking a selfie, before Hannah returns to her car, stopping along the way to give me a high-five- something I make sure Rosie sees.

“Okay, we can go now,” I say with a chuckle, waving at my girlfriend as we head off.

“Bit cruel, wasn’t that?” Stuart asks. “Teasing her like that?”

“Meh, she’s been nothing but snotty to me ever since I met her,” I snort. “That was Chloe’s younger sister, and I told you about her older sister, right?”

“Ugh, yeah,” Stuart spits. “So she’s a transphobe too? That’s a damn shame, seeing as how young she is…”

“Doubt she’ll be one for long,” Mikey says with a grin. “Or would’ve been at all if it had been your wife on the doorstep instead of Han.”

“Dunno if I like the idea of that,” Stuart says. “Having to ‘buy’ someone’s acceptance like that.”

“She won’t give me any shit anymore,” I say. “And take it from someone who’s dealt with a lot of shit, I wish it was that easy with everyone.”

“Changing perceptions one person at a time,” Mikey chuckles. “You know, it’s a pity we still have that spare seat in Sarah’s car.”

“True,” Stuart says, before turning to me. “Don’t know anyone who’d want to fill it, do you?”

“Anyone who wouldn’t mind spending three hours in a car with four gorgeous women?” I ask, a smile creeping across my face. “Let me get my phone out…”

An hour later, the three of us in our van are heading east along the M4 toward London when Mikey suddenly accelerates to overtake the sky blue Citroen C3 in front of us. Stuart and I both laugh as we wave at the five inhabitants of the car- specifically, the six foot tall figure of Lee Charlton squished up against the rear door window. Seeing as it’s the tall, slender body of Jacinta Hanley doing the ‘squishing’, though, Lee definitely doesn’t seem to mind too much!

‘Don’t get TOO excited in there,’ I text my friend, who rolls his eyes at me as he reads the message.

‘Too late,’ Lee replies. ‘Got any spare pants?’

‘Dirty bastard,’ I reply with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji that makes Lee laugh as we speed ahead of the car.

“Share the joke,” Stuart insists.

“It’s a dirty boy joke,” I say, handing my phone to Stuart.

“Those are the best kind,” Stuart says, before chortling loudly as he reads the message exchange.

“Go on,” Mikey says, before laughing himself as Stuart reads the three messages to him. “Yeah- I think I’m gonna like him.” That simple sentence, even when said jokingly, is enough to warm my heart as we head deeper into England. Stuart and his friends liking me is good. Them liking Chloe as well is great, but if they like Lee and the rest of the guys? That would be perfect. And just serves to hammer home how intolerant my mother is, criticising me for preferring the company of ‘nerds’ to ‘celebrities’ when the celebrities themselves would much rather hang out with nerds. And it’s not like these trips to London will be a regular thing- though that makes me more determined to make the most of them when they do happen.

We arrive back in London just after 3pm, with me, Lee and Stuart being dropped off at the older man’s house, all three of us tired after our long trip but still excited by tonight’s party!

“Hi honey, I’m home!” Stuart laughs as he lets us in to the big, modern house.

“In the living room,” Jamie replies, before grinning as she sees that her husband isn’t alone. “Oh hey, Ian! SHORT time no see, hehe!”

“Hi Jamie!” I reply. “Hi Olivia!” I giggle as Jamie playfully waves her little daughter’s arm at me.

“Brought another guest too,” Stuart says as Lee nervously waves at the famous woman, who replies by coming up and giving him a gentle hug.

“Hi!” Jamie says with a smile. “I’m Jamie, Jamie-Lee Milton, but I’m guessing you already knew that, hehe!”

“Yeah,” Lee laughs nervously. “I’m, umm, Lee, Lee Charlton.”

“So, you’re Ian’s best friend, then?” Jamie asks.

“Well, today I’m more ‘substitute girlfriend’,” Lee says, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and making our hostess sigh and roll her eyes.

“We like Lee,” Stuart says with a smug grin.

“Boys,” Jamie sighs, before giggling. “Make yourselves comfortable, we’ll have some dinner, then once my parents have picked up Olivia we’ll head out to Charlotte’s, okay?”

“Sounds good,” Stuart says as his wife heads into their kitchen. “I’m going to head upstairs to get changed, you two relax, okay?”

“Sure,” I say as Lee and I remove our shoes and sit down on the comfortable sofa.

“I’ve got to admit,” Lee says, “this is NOT how I imagined my New Year going.”

“My apologies for taking you away from your one true love,” I retort.

“Oh, Chwilen understands,” Lee says. “And anyone who doesn’t jump at the chance to party with a group of rich, famous and beautiful women needs their head checked. Or… They’re someone who’s dedicated themselves to avoiding partying like that.”

“…You calling me a hypocrite?” I ask.

“I’m wondering why your attitude has suddenly changed,” Lee replies. “How many times did you freak out about your connection to the Angels and what your mother thought about it?” I bite my lip as I realise that Lee may have a point- but there’s one thing he hasn’t considered.

“It was easy to dismiss the Angels when I just thought of them as ‘The Angels’,” I reply. “But I don’t think of people like Abbey-Gayle or Jamie as ‘my famous friends’, I just think of them as ‘my friends’.”

“Even the little blonde one who’s a stereotypical hairdresser?” Lee asks.

“Even her,” I say. “Sure, if I had to do it all again and actually had more of a say in things, I probably would stay away from Jamie and Stuart and so forth. But I’m glad I am friends with them.”

“Does that include me too?” Lee asks with mock pleading eyes.

“Sadly, yes,” I say, making the tall boy snort with laughter. “And Rob, and Neil too.”

“We aren’t likely to make you rich and famous, though,” Lee says. “Well, maybe Chwilen can, but I have first dibs there.”

“You yourself just pointed out that that’s what I’m trying to avoid,” I snort. “I don’t care if Jamie doesn’t make me famous. I like her as a person, a friend.”

“And what about what your mother thinks?” Lee asks, making me pause.

“I don’t care what she thinks,” I say in a dark voice. “She only sees Jamie, Stuart and co as a means to an end, rather than people. She was the same way with Abbey-Gayle as well. Though at least there she’s better than my quote-unquote father and his mother.”

“Not racist or trans-slash-homophobic,” Lee says with a sarcastic snort of laughter. “Done by faint praise indeed.” I go to reply to my friend, only to be stopped by a quiet cough from the kitchen doorway.

“Sorry,” Jamie says quietly. “Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but, well, you are kinda in my house, heh.”

“It’s okay,” I shrug. “Not like there’s a camera crew here or anything.”

“There will be tonight, though,” Jamie says. “But you shouldn’t have THAT hard a time avoiding them or blending into the background. But then again, you ARE very mature, heh. Especially for a BOY!”

“Thank you,” I say with a grin as I recognise the double compliment.

“You’re pretty cool too, Lee,” Jamie says, making my friend bite his lip to avoid blushing. “Sorry if you feel outnumbered being in a house with three transgendered people, heh.”

“No, it’s fine,” Lee shrugs. “Besides, I’m not the one who should feel outnumbered, aren’t guys outnumbering girls 3-2 at the moment?”

“…It’s you and me against the world, Olivia,” Jamie says with a mock sigh as she scoops her daughter out of her playpen and gives her a gentle cuddle. “You know where you’re staying tonight?”

“Think Jacinta called first dibs on me,” I say.

“Aww, that’s a pity,” Jamie sighs. “We’ve barely used our spare room since we moved in…”

“It’s okay,” Lee shrugs. “I was talking to Jacinta on the way over. Kinda hard not to when I had her squished up against me for three hours.”

“I can’t help but notice you don’t seem too disappointed by that,” Jamie teases, earning a smug grin from my friend. “Isn’t she in a relationship with someone?”

“I dunno,” I shrug. “Haven’t been keeping up…”

“And you do know she’s transgendered too, right?” Jamie asks.

“Still a girl, isn’t she?” Lee shrugs, another smug grin spreading across his face as Jamie smiles approvingly. “And I may as well make the most of this chance, like I said, I wasn’t exactly Ian’s first choice.”

“You are eighteen though, right?” Jamie asks, smiling as Lee nods. “Figured it might be a stretch, allowing a sixteen year old into one of the parties, especially a big one like New Year.”

“I went to one of Charlotte’s parties earlier in the year with Ella,” I remind the beautiful blonde woman. “I was only seventeen then.”

“…I guess,” Jamie says with a grimace. “I suppose it’s different for boys. I dunno. I would like to meet Chloe, she sounds cool.”

“She is,” I say with a grin. “And I don’t need to ask why you want to meet her, do I?”

“Indeed you don’t,” Jamie giggles knowingly.

Stuart returns to the living room a few minutes later, having changed into a smart designer shirt for the party (and loaned me one and Lee one of his friends’ shirts to wear), and after a quick dinner, Jamie’s parents arrive to take charge of Olivia, freeing us to head to the vast, posh home of Charlotte Hartley and her family.

When we arrive, the party is already in full swing, and even though there are cameras capturing the action for Jamie & Charlotte’s reality TV show, I don’t feel as stressed as I would’ve been this time last year- or even this time last month. Maybe it’s because I chose to come here, rather than was forced or coerced by my mother. Maybe it’s because, as an adult, I’m free to choose my own path in life, and I can reject any ‘fame’ that comes my way without fear of any consequences. Or, more likely, I’m relaxed because I know I’m among friends. Tonight’s party is just like last night’s- well, apart from me being the centre of attention, anyway- it’s just a group of young people hanging out together having fun.

“This is fucking awesome!” Lee yells, giving me a firm pat on the shoulder. “Maybe even better than last night, heh!”

“Probably!” I chuckle. “Sure you wouldn’t rather be locked in your shed tinkering with Chwilen?”

“…She’s not going anywhere,” Lee shrugs. “Though I will have to make it up to her tomorrow. Meantime, speaking of ‘making up’…” I smile as Lee merges into the crowd, quickly making his way to where Jacinta and her friends are sat. I smirk as the tall, black-haired boy effortlessly integrates with the group, earning laughs for some of his jokes and (unsurprisingly) eye rolls and groans for many of his others.

Two parts of my life that I’d thought were incompatible are seamlessly gelling together, and I couldn’t be happier- it almost makes me forget about the multiple other parts of my life that AREN’T gelling together, though every time I see one of the cameras in the room, I’m reminded of just how excited my mother would be by my presence at this party. One thing’s for certain, though- I’m definitely going to try my hardest to get Neil and Rob into one of these parties next year.

I try my hardest to avoid the cameras as I head toward the bar at the end of the room, though I allow myself a silent, inward groan when I arrive there to find yet another ‘ungelled’ part of my life sat on one of the barstools.

“Pint of Carlsberg, please,” I sat to the barman, a brown-haired guy only slightly taller than me.

“Another one of these for me please, Danny,” Ella says, handing her empty cocktail glass back to the barman, who quickly provides us with our drinks. “I’m just- can’t believe you’re actually here, Ian.”

“A little surprised myself,” I confess as I sip my beer. “I- I’m sorry about last night, I-“

“No- no, I’m sorry,” Ella sighs. “What I said last night was out of line. Guess I was just a little steamed after we’d last met.”

“Though as you pointed out several times, we WERE in an open relationship,” I say.

“I know,” Ella whispers. “Sometimes- sometimes, though, there was a part of me that kinda wished it was closed.”

“…I felt the same way,” I confess. “But that’s in the past now.”

“You’re really happy with the little ginger girl, then?” Ella asks.

“I am,” I say. “She’s cute, she’s funny… She’s got no problem with me in bed…”

“Sorry, again,” Ella groans. “I- I didn’t have any problem either, I was- I was just a little-“

“Yeah, apology accepted,” I mumble.

“Didn’t help, your girlfriend looking like she wanted to claw my eyes out,” Ella says, making me smirk. “Wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d tried.”

“She’s definitely a bit feisty,” I say. “But in a good way.”

“Guess it’s appropriate,” Ella shrugs. “Most countries put their women on a pedestal. Wales put theirs on their national flag.” I grimace as I suddenly snort with laughter, spraying beer all over the bar.

“I’m not telling her you said that,” I say to the smirking blonde girl. “Might tell my mother, I dunno.”

“You going to be in London much in 2018?” Ella asks.

“Might be,” I shrug. “Definitely going to try, though.”

“Harder than you did when you came to London to see me?” Ella asks.

“…Maybe,” I mumble. “It depends on whether or not Chloe’s parents will let her come too, or if I can persuade the rest of the guys from Cardiff to come too… One of them has a car so can, you know, drive…”

“Good thing I’m not likely to be here, if Chloe’s coming,” Ella says, making me frown with confusion.

“Umm- what?” I ask.

“I’m probably going to be going back to Australia in the New Year,” Ella says. “Early on… They- they’re founding an Australian Angel group in the New Year, Joshua reckons I should be part of it. I kinda miss my parents, too, and my brothers…”

“Oh,” I say. “Well, umm, do- do you want to go?”

“Kinda,” Ella shrugs. “Though I will miss everyone here, and I know Abbey-Gayle said she’d miss me. Even said she’d look for a replacement, like- like she did with, umm, you and Maisie…”

“Even though she’s now a ‘proper’ Angel herself?” I ask.

“All the ‘proper’ Angels are older than her,” Ella shrugs. “And you know- well, you DO know how generous she is to ‘her’ gang.”

“She didn’t start out that way,” I say.

“Yeah, ‘cause she’s the only one who’s changed, hasn’t she?” Ella asks, making me roll my eyes. “You know, ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ was always my favourite member of that group. The one I got along with the best…”

“Pity ‘she’ never really existed,” I retort.

“Yep,” Ella says. “’Course, if I had a reason to stay in London, I probably would…”

“I’ll miss you,” I say firmly, immediately cottoning on to Ella’s train of thought.

“You can always come and visit, if you want,” Ella shrugs. “Might be a bit further than London, but still-“

“I’ll think about it,” I say with a smile, sighing as Ella leans in to give me a gentle kiss on my cheek before mingling with the rest of the crowd. In truth, I probably wouldn’t go as far as Australia to see Ella, but I will miss her. She’ll always be my first, she’ll always be the girl that showed ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ the most acceptance, she’ll always be the one from London I showed ‘Ian’ to first, and she’ll always be one of my best friends, no matter how temperamental she gets… But she’s a part of my past now. A fond memory, nothing more. Chloe is my present and my future- and so is Lee, so are Neil and Rob, and, much to my surprise, so are my London friends.

I spend the rest of the evening drinking, having fun and dancing with my friends, including the singer Stephanie Abbott, who grabbed me for a dance almost as soon as she saw me! As we dance, I can't help but fixate on the bottom of the tattoo just peeking out from underneath Stephanie's dress- a tattoo she and five of my other friends got a few months ago, after we'd all gathered for a photoshoot for a newspaper magazine. Steph gives me the traditional ‘New Year’s kiss’ (albeit on my cheek) as the bells chime to signify the end of 2017 and the start of 2018, and my eyes again linger on her tattoo- and the identical tattoos of many of my other transgendered friends. When they got their tattoos, I wasn’t legally allowed to get one of my own, but even if I had been, I’m not sure I would’ve wanted to- not because of fear of the pain involved with getting a tattoo, but because I didn’t feel like I genuinely belonged in that ‘group’. Now, however, things are different. My London friends have shown me nothing but love and acceptance, and they deserve nothing less than the same in return, and as Stuart, Jamie and I share a taxi back to their home, I waste no time in announcing my plans.

“I want the tattoo,” I say, taking care not to stumble over my words in my inebriated state.

“Umm, sorry?” Jamie- who has also had more than a few drinks- asks.

“I want the tattoo,” I repeat. “The fellowship tattoo, like you two have. I want to get one tomorrow.”

“Sure that’s not the beer talking?” Stuart asks.

“Posi- positive,” I say. “After all you’ve done for me, all the help, even after I’ve stormed off in a sulk…”

“Let me guess,” Stuart chuckles, “’I bloody love you guys’, right?”

“Sure, why not?” I ask.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” Jamie giggles as the taxi pulls up outside her posh suburban home. “In the meantime, get some sleep, okay?”

“Will do!” I say, giggling and exchanging a hug with both of my hosts before heading up to the spare room that’s been made up for me, where I quickly fall asleep in the plush, warm bed.

Naturally, my head is pulsing with pain when I wake up the following morning- my second hangover in just over two days of being eighteen- and I lay awake in bed for a few minutes, trying to shake away the pain, before smiling as I hear the familiar sound of a baby’s laughter coming from downstairs. Sure enough, after taking some time to wash my face (and try to rinse the taste of last night out of my mouth), when I head downstairs I find both of my hosts already awake and feeding- or rather, trying to feed- their baby daughter.

“Good morning, sleepyhead!” Jamie teases as she delicately spoons the mushy food into Olivia’s mouth. “There’s fresh coffee in the kitchen if you want to pour yourself a cup.”

“Looks like that coffee will be needed,” Stuart jokes. “Bet there’s more than just ‘sleep’ in his head, heh!”

“Thanks,” I say, rolling my eyes as I pour a cup of the hot black liquid.

“What time do you have to be back in Cardiff?” Jamie asks.

“Umm, pretty much just ‘by tomorrow’,” I reply.

"Not going to stick around to watch Arsenal get pummelled by Chelsea, then?" Stuart asks with a smug grin that makes me roll my eyes.

"You just-" I say, before a loud groan from Stuart's wife interrupts us.

"If I hear the word 'bet' or 'wager' at this table, I swear I'm kicking you BOTH out," Jamie sighs, her own eyes rolling as Stuart and I snicker at her frustration.

"I'll let you stay dry today," I tease my unofficial 'mentor'. "I’ll get in touch with Lee in a bit, see when he wants to get a train.”

“Think he might have got in touch with you already,” Stuart says. “Your phone was going this morning.”

“Now that IS a surprise,” Jamie giggles. “He was drinking even more than you last night. AND, yes, left with Jacinta.”

“I’ll check it in a bit,” I say, smirking at my hostess’s innuendo. “Thanks so much for letting me stay over last night.”

“Hey, you’re part of the gang,” Stuart chuckles. “Tattoo or no tattoo!”

“…Ah,” as vague memories of my drunken declaration in the taxi come flooding back to me.

“Still thinking of getting it done?” Jamie asks. “Because I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t, mine itched for AGES and the actual act of getting it done just sucked.”

“No, no I want to get it done,” I say. “Because you guys didn’t have to accept me into your home, you didn’t have to bring me to this party, it’s not like you gain anything from it-“

“Wrong,” Jamie says firmly. “We gain a friend.”

“And,” Stuart adds, “in years to come, you may meet a young man, say, ten years younger than you, who had the misfortune of being born with lady parts, and needs a ‘mentor’ type…”

“Talk to the person who’s suffered from ridiculous levels of stress and depression?” I snort.

“Can’t think of anyone better suited to the job.” Stuart shrugs, and I actually struggle not to shed a tear as Stuart and Jamie smile approvingly at me.

Despite their insistence, I know deep down that they’re not getting anything tangible out of my friendship, that my presence in their lives doesn’t improve them in a significant way and that they have absolutely no obligation to me at all, legal or otherwise. And still, they go out of their way to be nice to me. I can’t help but contrast their attitude with that of my ‘parents’, who always expected ‘results’- success in dance and gymnastics competitions, for me to ‘keep up appearances’ with Abbey-Gayle and her gang and my ‘friends’ from school, to always be on my best behaviour around Grandma Walker… Sure, I was a child then, and I’m (technically) an adult now, and I’m dealing with peers rather than elders, but it’s an undisputable fact that Stuart and Jamie have shown me far more love than Craig and Angela ever did- and that little Olivia will have a hell of a better childhood than I did.

A short while later, I’m biting my lip to try to bear the sharp, burning pain of the tattooist’s needle as it permanently marks the skin on my right bicep with the logo etched into the skin of Stuart, Jamie, Stephanie, Nikki, Jacinta and Jessica- all of whom have come to watch my ‘indoctrination’, along with the two younger members of our ‘fellowship’ (who are, of course, waiting in a coffee shop just down the road from the tattoo parlour).

“All done,” the tattoo artist says as he wipes my arm with an antibacterial wipe and wraps it in clear, flimsy plastic and advises me on aftercare procedures.

“Will do,” I say as I stare at my new tattoo with a proud grin on my face.

“Oh, well done mate!” Lee says, motioning to give me a heavy pat on my (still-stinging) arm, only to stop at the last second as I flinch away from him. “Looks good on you.”

“It does!” Jacinta giggles, keeping my sleeve rolled up to inspect it a bit more closely.

“It should do, it was your idea if I recall,” I say, making the tall transgendered girl giggle happily. “And it was a REALLY good idea.”

“Reckon Chloe will like it, though?” Lee asks. “She into a ‘bit of rough’?”

“Are you kidding?” I ask with a giggle. “First thing she did when I told her I was in the ‘Fellowship’ was ask if I had the tattoo. Can you take a snap of it for me?”

“Sure,” Jacinta says, photographing the tattoo on my phone. “You two heading back to Wales now?”

“Yeah,” I sigh. “Back to college next week, still got plenty of coursework to catch up on.”

“But we’re definitely coming back soon,” Lee says with a smug grin. “February the 2nd, right?”

“Yep,” Jacinta says with an equally smug grin. “And it’s a Friday, so you’d BOTH better be here early!”

“We will,” I say with a smile. “I’m looking forward to it already!” And much to my surprise, I genuinely am.

After a quick lunch with the rest of the ‘Fellowship’, Lee and I head back to Paddington station and hop on the next train back to Cardiff, both of us exhilarated after an exciting weekend but looking forward to getting back to our homes.

“…So, then,” I say. “You and Jacinta?”

“My lips are sealed,” Lee replies.

“Your lips are also making a very smug grin,” I retort.

“All I’ll say is that she is INCREDIBLY girlish,” Lee says. “Like, it’s far deeper than just skin-deep.”

“Yeah, I am familiar with the whole ‘transgender’ thing,” I retort.

“Yeah, but- and I don’t mean any offence,“ Lee says hesitantly. “She’s a lot more feminine than you are masculine, if that makes any sense?”

“A little,” I retort. “VERY little. Though… I guess, I dunno. She’s been transitioning longer than I have.”

“Meh, either way, she’s cool,” Lee shrugs. “Thanks for inviting me along to the party, mate. Will admit I was having second thoughts on the way down to London but I’m glad I went.”

“I’m glad you went too,” I say. “Eventually you get fed up of living two lives- one in London, one in Cardiff- I’m glad that things are starting to ‘blend’ a little.”

“I’m definitely looking at London universities too, now,” Lee says.

“Me too,” I say with a grin. “God… Even if that means we end up becoming flat mates, heh.”

“Take it you’d prefer that to moving back in with your parents, then?” Lee asks, grimacing as I frown.

"I'd rather live in a fucking ditch than with Craig or Angela," I spit. "Learned this week that family isn't about who you share DNA with. I've got family- admittedly, one person I share DNA with- in Cardiff, and a 'proper' family in London."

"Are pseudo big brothers and sisters better than parents, though?" Lee asks.

"Seeing who the 'parents' and 'brothers and sisters' are, yes," I reply. "And why are you being so insightful all of a sudden? Are you still hung over or something?"

"Charming," Lee says. "Just tired after a great weekend. Part of me still can't believe you were actually up for all of this."

"I went in spite of my parents, not because of them," I retort. "That's the way it's going to be from now on."

Family isn't just about blood or DNA, and the last few days have proved it. They say you can't choose your family- well I can, and I have. Craig and Angela mean nothing to me, not anymore. I don't intend to depend on my friends in London- or my friends in Cardiff, for that matter- but I know that I'll always have that option if I really need it, and the mark on my right arm proves that. My 'parents' may have ruined my childhood, but I'll be damned if I let them have any negative effect on my adulthood. It's time for me to be a man. I'm going to make my own way in life- and that way will be 100% my own!

“Mmph,” I hear a familiar soft, feminine voice moan as my eyes slowly open. It’s a voice that brings back both good and bad memories- bad memories as it’s a voice that I had for the first sixteen years of my life, a voice that made me cringe every time it passed my lips. But it also brings good memories as in this case, it’s not coming from my mouth, but from the mouth of the beautiful redhead that’s snuggled up against me.

“Morning babe,” I say, waking Chloe up with a gentle kiss. “We should probably get ready- big day today, heh.”

“Mmph, I guess,” Chloe sighs. “I’d much rather stay here, though, seems like we NEVER get to do this…”

“I know, I know,” I sigh. “My grandma and your parents…”

“It was a miracle they even let me come today, heh,” Chloe chuckles. “Speaking of which…” I try to keep myself composed as Chloe's hands start to gently explore my torso, before chuckling and reluctantly brushing her hands away.

“Later, I promise,” I say, before taking a deep breath and slowly peeling back the bedsheets and padding toward the small hotel room’s en-suite and stepping into the shower.

As I shower, I let out a heavy sigh as the water cascades over my body... And between the two unwelcome growths on my chest. As the water trickles between my legs, it only serves to drive home the fact that my body is still very much not my own. Naked, I still have a girl's body. A girl's body with vastly increased muscle definition and with hair on all of my limbs and on my chest, but a girl's body nonetheless, with all the expected 'parts', with hips wider than my waist and with a neck distinctly lacking in an Adam's apple. My body is very different than it was two years ago, of course- but compared to where I want to be, I'm still very much on square one. Despite my muscles, it's a miracle Chloe finds me attractive at all. As I dry myself off, I keep my back turned to the bathroom mirror so as not to depress myself further- a habit that's formed over the course of several months.

However, once I’ve pulled on my jockey shorts and my ‘special’ vest, the one that flattens my chest, I feel energised and ready to take on the world. Which is appropriate, considering what I’ll be spending most of today doing!

“Hope you saved me some hot water!” Chloe teases, giving me a kiss en route to the bathroom, only to turn around and sit me down on our bed.

“Umm… We’re kinda in a hurry,” I say to the seventeen year old girl, who dismisses my concerns with a wave as she runs her fingers through my hair, undoing my careful combing to make it look a lot messier (and, much to my chagrin, a lot more fashionable).

“…There,” Chloe says, standing back with a proud look on her face. “MUCH better, hehe!”

“If you say so,” I say, staring at my altered reflection in the mirror.

“A bit of stubble would’ve been better as well,” Chloe says, gently stroking my frustratingly smooth cheek. “But I think you can be forgiven there.”

“Yeah, I definitely agree with you about that,” I chuckle, before pulling on my jeans and my specially-commissioned hoodie- which causes Chloe to fuss with my hair again as it gets flattened being pulled through the neck hole.

“You want to look your best for the cameras!” Chloe chastises me. "And don't you dare put that cap on!"

“Well- okay,” I sigh as I feel my tension levels start to rise again, only for them to dissipate again as Chloe gives me a playful kiss and disappears into our en-suite.

A short while later, after Chloe showers and pulls on her own custom hoodie (albeit over a short skirt and a pair of black tights), the two of us head down to the hotel’s reception area hand in hand, where the rest of our travelling companions are waiting for us- well, all but one of them, anyway!

“Took you long enough!” Lee overdramatically sighs, staring at his watch.

“Oh please,” Lee’s father snorts. “Like you wouldn’t have been in bed until dinnertime if your lady friend had been here today.”

“Where is Jacinta this week, anyway?” Chloe asks. “Feel a bit self-conscious, being the only girl here.”

“D’aww,” I playfully coo as I wrap my arm around my girlfriend’s waist and whisper in her ear. “And thanks for the ‘only girl’ comment’.”

“You’re welcome, stud!” Chloe whispers back as she slips her hand into my back pocket and gives me a firm squeeze.

“Couldn’t make it today,” Lee shrugs. “I know she was busy all last week as she had friends coming over from America, and she’s busy with uni work this week… And she’d probably be kinda jealous of the other woman in my life. Who’s waiting in the back of the van."

"Sort-of stretching the definition of 'open relationship' there mate," Neil teases, earning a snort of laughter from the black-haired boy.

“And I think we’re all a little jealous of her,” Chloe says. “Not because she’s going out with you, Lee, but because she’s going to be the one all the cameras are focussed on!” I chuckle nervously as we head out to where Lee’s father’s van is parked. I will admit to a twinge of excitement as the door is flung open and there, sat among a vast pile of spare parts, is Chwilen, the robot that Lee has slaved over for the past few months and that will soon be getting its fifteen minutes of fame… As will I, as the robot’s driver. And that’s what scares me more than anything.

Logically, I know I shouldn’t be anxious about appearing on the show. We’ll be one of at least thirty different teams, each with at least three members, so I’ll be one of over a hundred contestants over the course of the series. And, as Lee said, it’s the robot that people will remember, not the people who built it. The show is a celebration of engineering and creativity, not personality or celebrity. And yet, the thought of having a camera pointed at me still chills me to the bone.

I know exactly why this is, of course, and exactly who’s to blame. It’s something I’ve talked about lots with Dr Harris, and she has repeatedly assured me that if I do seek these sorts of opportunities by myself, they’ll be my own achievements and nothing to do with my mother, but that’s the point- I don’t want to seek these achievements. I want to live a quiet life, I want to be an ordinary boy and I don’t want to have to give even the slightest thought to my public image. And yet, it’s not just my mother, but the whole world trying to pull me in that direction. Ever since I got my tattoo on New Year’s Day, I’ve been seen as more and more a part of ‘the gang’- not helped by Lee’s increasingly steady (albeit long-distance) relationship with another member of ‘the fellowship’. After I got the tattoo, Jamie shared a photo of it (and me) on her Instagram page, sharing my name, face and social media details with over two million people- several thousand of whom immediately started following me and commenting on my photos. Every comment I got about my appearance- even on photos where I’m sat playing videogames or tabletop games- caused me more and more panic until, on January 6th, I deleted my Instagram account completely.

It’s not even like they were negative comments. Most of them were from young women commenting on how attractive and convincingly male I was. Aside from the odd one or two idiots, there weren’t any transphobic comments at all- unsurprising, as they all came from Jamie’s referral- but each one made me feel just as I did when I was fifteen and being scolded by my mother for having a stray hair out of place, or not trying hard enough at ballet or cheerleading…

The more I isolate myself from the celebrity culture I seem to have stumbled into, the happier I am- even though it means spending less time in London with Jamie, Stuart and their friends. I’ve been back to London three times since the New Year, all for friends’ birthday parties (and I would've been another time for Stuart's birthday as well, if it didn't clash with Neil's), and each time, I did my best to keep a low profile. I also did my best to have fun, of course- I love hanging out with Jamie, Stuart et al as much as I love hanging out with my friends in Cardiff, especially as the latter group has been made increasingly welcome into the former, but there are still things I’m not comfortable with doing and responsibilities I’m not willing to have. And no matter how hard I try, the world keeps conspiring to force me into these situations.

But the worst thing of all? There’s a part of me, deep down, that actually loves and craves all of this attention and wants more…

“Soon, my darling,” Lee says, gently caressing Chwilen’s carefully-decorated armour and snapping me out of my reverie.

“You do know that she’s going to get pummelled the second she goes into the arena, right?” Neil asks. “No offence, Ian, but your graphics are going to be destroyed in seconds in there.”

“I printed more,” I shrug as I look at the decals that have been carefully applied to the robot’s side- decals displaying the robot’s name and that have a pattern closely resembling a beetle’s armour (‘Chwilen’ of course being Welsh for ‘beetle’).

“No matter the damage, we can repair her,” Lee says. “We knew what we were getting into when we signed up for this.”

“Hence the number of spare parts,” Lee’s dad interjects. “It’ll end up being like Trigger’s broom by the end of it, heh.”

“But its spirit will still be the same,” Lee says, giving the robot a gentle pat before closing the van doors.

“Aww, true love,” Chloe teases, giggling as Lee rolls his eyes.

“I’ve put a lot of work into this,” Lee says defensively.

“WE have,” Lee’s father corrects his son. “But it’s worth it. Nothing good ever came easy.”

“Yeah, I can testify to that,” I chuckle, earning a friendly pat on my back from Rob.

“Well, today, we’re all gonna get our hard-earned reward,” Lee says, climbing into his father’s van alongside the older man while the rest of us pile into our waiting taxi.

A few minutes later, we arrive outside a large, innocuous-looking warehouse, one of many in this area of Glasgow, but which is very different than the others once we get inside! After being greeted by the show’s production team and having our photos taken with Chwilen, we’re escorted to our area in the warehouse’s vast pit area, where Lee and his dad immediately set to work tinkering with and testing the robot.

While the two men engross themselves in their work, Chloe, Neil, Rob and I take the opportunity to have a look around the vast studio, checking out the other teams as they prepare their creations, each one treated as lovingly as Chwilen is, before heading to the arena itself to watch it being prepared for today’s battles.

“It’s so weird, actually being here,” Neil muses. “Seeing it for real…”

“I know,” Chloe says. “Definitely one for the bucket list. Hopefully I’ll tick another one off by the end of the year, somewhere I’ve seen on TV where at least two of you have been…?”

“…The Doctor Who set?” Rob asks.

“Charlotte Hutchinson’s house?” Chloe replies to nods of understanding from the four of us.

“Ah, yeah,” I say. “It’s smaller than it looks on TV, kinda like this place, really.”

“This place looks bigger than the whole of Cardiff on TV,” Neil chuckles. “And for the record, I thought you meant the Crystal Maze, not the Angels’ house. Which my sister is also desperate to go to and has tried to persuade me to persuade you guys to take her at least once.”

“I’m pushing it enough just taking Lee along,” I retort, earning chuckles from the other lads.

“And those dibs have long since been claimed!” Chloe giggles as she gives me a tight hug. “…And yes, I’m still up for being on your Crystal Maze team as well, hehe! Think I have to be eighteen for that as well, though…”

“Only eleven months to wait,” I say, returning my girlfriend’s hug. “But you’re here, and that’s something, right?”

“Yep!” Chloe replies with a giggle as we start to head back to the pit area, only to be intercepted by a member of the production company, who was clearly on the lookout for us- and, more alarmingly, specifically us and not Lee or the robot.

“Hi,” the researcher says hesitantly. “You’re team… Chwilen, right?”

“Yep, part of it,” Rob replies.

“Which one of you is Ian?” The researcher asks, and I can immediately feel my whole body tense up.

“M- me,” I reply, nervously raising a hand.

“We’d like to have a chat with you separately, if you wouldn’t mind?” The researcher asks in his soft Scottish accent.

“Umm, okay,” I say.

“We’ll see you back at the pit area, babe,” Chloe says, giving me a playful kiss as I head off with the young man to a secluded area of the studio.

“I think I know what this is gonna be about,” I say with a heavy sigh.

“Yeah,” the researcher says hesitantly. “I will admit, we don’t get many transgendered competitors on the show, so this is something we do want to celebrate, to show the inclusive nature of the show.”

“Ah, yeah,” I grimace. “That- that’s something I’d kinda prefer it if you didn’t do, if that’s okay.”

“Oh- oh, umm, okay,” the researcher says, clearly surprised by my reluctance. “I just assumed- never mind, if you don’t want to, that’s your decision, I suppose.”

“What- what did you assume?” I ask, curious as why the producers assumed I wouldn’t mind being made an example of.

“Well, because we’ve seen you on the social media pages of people like Jamie-Lee Burke,” the researcher replies, making my heart sink. “I think you’ve got the same tattoo that they all have, don’t you?”

“…Yep,” I sigh, rolling up my sleeve to show the artwork on my arm.

“And, well, because they’ve done so much to raise transgender awareness…” The researcher mumbles as my stress starts to fade to be replaced by a familiar but very unwelcome feeling- a feeling of guilt. Only this time, instead of being made to feel guilty by my mother for ‘not trying hard enough’, my guilt’s coming from within as I remember what Stuart said to me in December, when I stayed at his house- that someday, a young transgendered boy may seek my advice and support that way I sought his, and while he didn’t say it at the time, he certainly implied that I’d be duty-bound to offer this help when asked for. With great masculinity comes great responsibility…

“Well… I suppose I could answer SOME questions,” I shrug. “As long as they’re not, you know, too personal…” I feel my tension quickly return and go far beyond where it was before as I sit down opposite the researcher, who smiles and opens an app on his iPad.

“Okay, we can ask a few questions that hopefully won’t be too ‘intimate’,” the researcher says. “I’m Stuart, by the way, Stuart McLaren.” Yeah, of course that’s what your name would be, I think to myself.

“Ian Freeman,” I say, shaking the young man’s hand.

“My first question would’ve been about your early life and the start of your transition, but if you don’t want to talk about that, I understand,” Stuart says.

“Thanks,” I whisper in reply.

“How did you come to meet the rest of your team?” Stuart asks.

“We go to the same college,” I reply. “I think they all knew each other from school, I moved to Cardiff from London after finishing secondary school, we got to know each other, that’s basically it. Me and Neil- another member of the team- got talking as we’re both Arsenal fans and I was wearing an Arsenal hat, that’s how it got started.”

“They’re doing well in Europe this year,” Stuart nods as he notes my response. “Did- was there, umm, any, you know, friction when they found out- I mean, when you met them, were you presenting as-“

“Nope, no friction,” I interrupt. “I explained I was transgendered, they accepted it, end of story.”

“O-kay,” Stuart says, scrolling down his iPad for his next question. “How involved have you been in the design of the robot?”

“Not a great deal,” I reply. “Lee’s the electronics man and his dad’s the mechanical engineer so it’s their creation, I just designed some graphics for the side- I study graphic design at college- and I’m the main driver as well.”

“So the lack of qualifications is the only reason you didn’t contribute more to the building of the robot?” Stuart asks, making me roll my eyes.

“What, you can only make something mechanical if you have a Y chromosome?” I ask.

“…Okay then…” Stuart mumbles. “Have you been a fan of the show for long?”

“I’ve only really seen the newer series, the ones made in the last few years,” I reply. “Though to answer your inevitable next question, yes, I’d have watched the other ones if they’d been on when I was young.”

“I- I think we’ve got enough,” Stuart says with a heavy sigh. “Thanks for your time.”

“Thanks,” I say, shaking Stuart’s hand and heading back to the pit area, where the rest of the team are busy tinkering with our robot.

“Nice of you to join us,” Lee says as he tests parts of Chwilen with an unusual-looking device.

“Everything okay with her?” I ask.

“Should be fine,” Lee replies. “Just checking the current is consistent, the electronics kinda need to be robust if we’re going to be rolling them over a fire pit, heh.”

“Can imagine,” I chuckle.

“What did the researcher want to talk about?” Chloe asks as she watches Lee work.

“Oh- umm, nothing really,” I half-lie. “Just a few questions about ‘you know what’.”

“Huh,” Chloe replies. “Suppose it makes sense, don’t get many transgendered roboteers, right?”

“Don’t get many GIRL roboteers,” Lee responds. “Umm, either, don’t get many girl roboteers either.”

“Smooth, man, smooth,” I say with an angry growl.

“Oh- mate,” Lee sighs, stopping me as I prepare to walk away. “I didn’t mean it like that, I’m sorry, I could’ve worded it a bit better.”

“Why are you so wound up about this?” Rob asks. “You’ve been transitioning for almost two years.”

“But I still am, that’s the point,” I spit. “This team isn’t ‘five guys and a girl’, it’s ‘four guys, a girl and a transgendered, and let’s all point and laugh at the last one’.”

“Mate, no one is pointing and laughing at you,” Rob sighs. “They probably want to make you, you know, an example like in a positive kind of way.”

“And if I don’t want to be an ‘example’?” I ask. “And don’t say ‘you shouldn’t have changed your gender’ as you know damned well that’s not an option.”

“If you don’t want to be an ‘example’ you don’t have to be,” Chloe says with a firm, almost angry voice. “And at least you slot in. The researcher actually had to ask which one of us you were. Doubt he’d have needed to ask which one of us was Chloe.”

“Well- okay,” I say, my anger and frustration quickly dissipating.

“You should be proud that you get to be a role model like this,” Chloe says bluntly. “I know I would be.”

“Sorry,” I mumble, suddenly feeling about an inch tall as I return to the workbench with the rest of the team, where I remain silent for the next several minutes until a researcher- a different one from before- approaches our area with a familiar flame-haired woman in tow.

“Hi guys,” the researcher says. “I think you all recognise Angela, heh!”

“Yep, nice to meet you!” Lee says, shaking the famous TV presenter’s hand as a camera crew zooms in on our workbench. “I’m Lee, this is my dad Alun, these are Neil, Rob, Ian and Chloe, and this is the real star of the show!”

“He looks like a real killer!” Angela chuckles in her soft Irish accent as she examines the robot.

"Yep," Lee says proudly. "The blade is 22 kilos of solid steel, it spins at 500 rpm and it can get up to speed very quickly. I sacrificed some top speed in favour of a quicker spin-up so by the time any robot gets close to us, it'll already be lethal."

“How long have you been working on him?” Angela continues her interrogation.

“Over a year,” Lee replies. “I grew up watching repeats of the show, I thought ‘I’m good at electronics, my dad work with metal all day, why not have a go?’. And here I am.”

“You’ve got your whole posse with you today, too!” Angela chuckles.

“Yep,” Lee says with a grin. “Everyone’s played a part in this team, no matter how small.”

“Who designed these murals on the side?” Angela asks, making me cringe as I know what’s coming next.

“That’d be our driver, Ian,” Lee says, giving me a playful pat on my shoulder.

“H- hi,” I say with a nervous wave.

“Well it’s definitely one of the fiercest looking robots in the competition this year,” Angela says. “It’s also good to see you’re one of the few teams this year who doesn’t just have a girl, but a redhead on your team too!” I smirk as Chloe giggles nervously at the sudden attention being paid to her.

“We’re not trying to suck up, honestly,” Lee chuckles.

“Sure, if you say so,” Angela playfully replies. “See you in the arena, okay?”

“Sure,” Lee says with a nervous wave, before breathing a sigh of relief as the camera crew move away. “Okay, that couldn’t have been more awkward, then.”

“And notice who they immediately homed in on?” Chloe asks, casting a glance in my direction and making my guilt levels rise again.

“Well, that’s done for now,” Lee says. “Next interview won’t be until after we smash everyone else in our first fight, heh!”

“Damn right!” Neil chuckles. “Who’s going up to the booth for the first fight?”

“Won’t be much space up there so first fight it’ll just be me and Ian,” Lee replies. “I’ll make sure you all get a turn up there, though!”

“Confident, then?” Rob asks.

“You heard the woman,” Lee shrugs. “It’s one of the fiercest looking robots in the competition! What could go wrong?” How about the driver making a mistake? I think to myself as yet another researcher arrives to escort us toward the arena.

After yet more posing for the cameras with Chwilen, Lee and I are escorted to the booth to get ready for our first fight. On our way up the stairs, Lee tries to give me some last minute coaching, reminds me of some strategies we’d developed during our hours of practice, but I barely hear a word he’s saying as the pressure of the situation threatens to overwhelm me. Lee’s depending on my driving skill to win this battle, Neil and Rob are counting on me to win so that they get their chance to be on-screen, and Chloe… God knows what’s going through her mind right now. I of all people should be able to understand the female brain, but the way she’s been around me today has me baffled. Hopefully it’s just a case of her feeling the stress of being here too, just like I am.

“…You get all that?” Lee asks.

“Yeah, sure,” I half-lie. “Sure you don’t want to drive?”

“Yeah, but I want to win more,” Lee replies with a chuckle. “You’ve had the most practice, you are our best driver. Just follow the plan and we’ll be fine.”

“Okay then,” I sigh as the arena announcer goes through the familiar introductions for the three robots in the arena. My heart rate increases with every word said until the most familiar phrase of all comes through the speakers.

“Three, two, one,” the announcer says. “Activate!” As I’ve rehearsed countless times, I hit the button on my remote control to start Chwilen’s weapon spinning and immediately aim her at the smaller and (in Lee’s opinion) weaker of our two opponents, ready to smash it to bits…

Fifteen minutes later, Lee and I return to the pit area, wheeling Chwilen on a trolley. The robot sustained a good few hits in the fight- her formerly pristine armour is scuffed and scratched, a few of the joins have split and her weapon has a few chips on it- but she’s very much in one piece, and Lee is beaming with pride as we’re greeted with a round of applause from the rest of our team.

“Smashed it, mate, smashed it!” Neil laughs, giving us both a pat on the back.

“So cool!” Chloe squeaks, making me grin as she gives me a tight hug and a kiss on my cheek. “You looked SO good out there!”

“Who, me, or Chwilen?” I ask, smirking as Chloe replies with another hug. “Yeah, the fight went well.”

“Still a bit of work to do to get her ready for her next fight, though,” Lee’s father says as he removes Chwilen’s top armour and disconnects her batteries. “This will probably take a while so if you four want to go and get some lunch, you go right ahead, our next fight won’t be for at least two hours.”

“And brings us back some chips too!” Lee shouts after us as we disappear out of the studio and head down the road toward a nearby café.

“The fight looked really good, mate,” Rob reassures me, giving me a friendly pat on my shoulder. “Chwilen’s gonna be a real contender this year.”

“Think Lee deserves most of the credit there,” I chuckle.

“Doesn’t mean you don’t deserve any!” Chloe insists. “Especially with how stressed out you were before the fight.”

“Yeah, you looked REALLY nervous, mate,” Rob says. “Didn’t really need to be, though, you’ve practised enough.”

“Feeling a little better now?” Chloe asks as she grabs my arm and gives it a cuddle.

“…A bit,” I reply.

“Good,” Chloe giggles, giving me a kiss as Rob and Neil roll their eyes at our public display of affection. “Was it Dara who did the interview after the fight? What’s he like? He always comes across as cool on-screen…”

“Yeah, he was okay,” I shrug. “Surprising it’s filmed in Scotland and they have two Irish hosts, though.”

“Dara’s the king of the nerds,” Rob explains with a grin. “Can’t wait to meet him, heh. Still reckon it’d have been cooler if it had been Craig Charles hosting.”

“Now HE is a legend,” Chloe giggles, before giving me yet another kiss (not that I’m complaining, of course). “Thank you SO much for bringing me today.”

“I wouldn’t want to be here with anyone else,” I reply, returning Chloe’s kiss despite the jeers of my friends.

“…Definitely less stressed out, then,” Neil snorts as we enter the café where we eat lunch. And in truth, I am less stressed out than I was this morning, but a part of me still feels uneasy. Not about letting the side down- Lee’s assured me that my driving skill is more than good enough, and not about being made the centre of attention, as Lee and Chloe seem to be happily sharing that ‘responsibility’. But there’s something not quite right, like my friends- and especially my girlfriend- are different somehow. Maybe they’re just feeling nervous about being on TV as well, I don’t know. All I know is that I’ll be happier once I’m back in Cardiff and back to my usual routine.

After lunch, we return to the studio (bringing Lee his promised bag of chips) where we help with the final stage of repairs to Chwilen, which largely consist of hammering out dents and repairing the graphics on the side. Not long afterward, we’re called back into the arena for our first one-on-one battle of the day, and I’m once again making the long walk up the stairs, this time accompanied by Lee and Neil, both of whom are offering advice about the upcoming fight.

Fifteen minutes later, the three of us are making the long walk back toward the pits after another victorious fight. Chwilen sustained yet more knocks on the fight, but Lee assures me that it’s nothing serious, and that she’ll be more than ready not just for her next fight, but the one after that too- because by winning our first two fights, we’ve qualified for the heat final, and even if we lose that, we’ll appear in the opening battle royal of the series final, which will be recorded this Thursday. Naturally, this leaves me feeling ambivalent- I’m happy to be doing well, but the thought of another day under the eyes of the camera isn’t an appealing one. While Lee and his father ready Chwilen for her next fight, I take the opportunity to step out of the studio for a breath of fresh air. A few minutes later, I feel a pair of familiar hands wrap themselves around my waist, making my mouth curl upwards into a grin.

“Hey babe,” I say.

“Mmm, hey sexy!” Chloe giggles. “They’re doing the post-fight interview inside, thought you might be interested?”

“Ehh… Maybe not this time,” I reply.

“Aww,” Chloe moans, tightening her grip around my waist. “Come on…”

“You can go back in if you want,” I say. “I- I just need a little air, that’s all.”

“…Nah,” Chloe says with a tired-sounding chuckle. “I want the people at home to see me with my sexy boyfriend, hehe!”

“Yeah,” I say with a giggle as I exchange a kiss with my flame-haired girlfriend.

We return to the pit area about fifteen minutes later to find the rest of our team hard at work, though this doesn’t stop our team captain from looking at us with a smug grin as we approach his workbench.

“You just missed the pit interview,” Lee says. “Decided you’ve had enough fame for one day, then?”

“Well- yes,” I reply bluntly, making the black haired boy laugh.

“Fair enough,” Lee shrugs. “We’ll have an interview before and after the final anyway, so no biggie. Chloe, you still want in the booth for this one?”

“Uh- yeah!” Chloe replies with a sarcastic nod.

“Then grab a hammer and start bashing out some of these dents,” Lee says, making my girlfriend roll her eyes.

“In Chwilen or your head?” Chloe retorts.

“Good girl,” Lee’s father laughs. “Now come on everyone, one more fight today, then you can get some rest tonight and tomorrow.” This thought cheers me up as I grab a hammer of my own and start straightening out one of Chwilen’s side panels- which, naturally, relieves some of my frustration as well.

A few hours later, with the energy levels of nearly everyone in the studio dwindling, Lee and I head back to the arena for our final fight of the day, accompanied by probably the only person in the building more excited than they were at the start of the day.

“This is gonna be so cool!” Chloe squeaks excitedly, adjusting her clothes and her hair so that they look their best. “Reckon we’ll win?”

“We’ve got a chance, as long as we stay away from their flipper,” Lee says.

“Duly noted,” I say, taking several deep breaths to compose myself as the three of us pose with Chwilen in the arena for our pre-fight interview- a much more terrifying prospect than the actual fight itself.

Fortunately, Lee does the bulk of the talking again, leaving me to quietly mentally prepare myself for the fight. Throughout the interview, though, I can’t help but notice that Chloe speaks up a lot too- and seems to be confused that I’m not.

Ten minutes later, the three of us descend the stairs from the control booth to the main arena, all of us letting out a heavy sigh at the sight of our robot wedged between two of the walls on the outside of the arena.

“You weren’t kidding about their flipper, then,” I sigh. “It must’ve launched Chwilen like, six feet into the air!”

“Yeah,” Lee sighs as he gives Chwilen a pat.

“I- I’m sorry, mate,” I mumble.

“Nah, you’ve got nothing to be sorry about,” Lee says. “We did much better than I expected, I mean, we ARE the newbies this year, some of these guys have been doing this for decades. Nope, we can hold our heads up high. And there’s always the battle royal, heh!”

“Yeah, I guess,” I say, laughing as I feel a large weight being lifted from my shoulders. If this had been my mum, and it had been a gymnastics competition or an audition, I’d probably now be getting scolded for not trying hard enough, or otherwise being made to feel about three inches tall. Despite myself, I let out a happy, almost girlish giggle as a bunch of crew members arrive and help to fish Chwilen out of the hole it’s been wedged into.

As we return to the pit area, we’re greeted by a round of applause not just from the rest of the team, but by all the other teams as well- we put up more of a fight than expected against such an experienced team, and the applause tells us that what Lee said is true- we do deserve to hold our heads high despite our defeat. Neil and Rob both have smiles on their faces, as does lee’s dad, but oddly, it’s Chloe who seems happiest of all.

“So, that’s that, then?” Neil asks. “I mean, there’s still the battle royal, but we’re gonna be just one of ten in that, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” Lee says with a shrug. “But someone’s got to win it, you know?”

“Either way, think we’ve all earned the night off,” Lee’s father says. “Dinner’s on me, heh!” The six of us all cheer happily as we wheel Chwilen back out to the van, and after ensuring that it’s safely locked away, we head to a nearby restaurant for dinner.

Naturally, the main topic of discussion at dinner is the day’s events, and equally unsurprisingly, Lee is the centre of attention. However, Chloe seems just as excited now as she was at the start of the day, and just seems to get more and more excited as the meal goes on. By the time we arrive back at our hotel room, I’m just about dead on my feet, but Chloe is still buzzing with energy.

“Today was SO amazing,” Chloe gushes as she strips off her clothes and pulls on one of my baggy t-shirts (even though I’m only 5’ 7”, my t-shirts are still more than large enough to act as nightdresses for her). “Easily the most fun I’ve ever had, hehe! And we get to do it all again on Thursday!”

“The most fun you’ve ever had involves banging things with a hammer and oiling wheel axles?” I retort.

“Well, the ‘banging’ bit was fun,” Chloe giggles as she gives me a playful kiss. “But it’s the first time I’ve been in front of a camera, you know? First time I’ve met someone famous, and I mean REALLY famous. Hannah will be SO jealous as she, like, loves Mock the Week, and Angela Scanlon’s probably Rosie’s biggest style icon, hehe! Though I don’t need to talk about big, fancy celebrity friends to you, do I, ‘Mr. Hangs Out With Angels’?”

“Hardly ‘hangs out with them’,” I shrug.

“That thing kinda disagrees with you!” Chloe giggles, stroking my fellowship tattoo after I remove my hoodie. “This could be even bigger for you than it is for me, you know.”

“Umm… Think it’s kinda bigger for Lee than anyone, it is his robot,” I say.

“Yeah, but he’s an eighteen year old nerdy guy,” Chloe shrugs.

“…So am I,” I remind my girlfriend.

“With a tattoo shared with a VERY exclusive club?” Chloe reminds me.

“Yeah…” I say with a grimace. “Can- can we just get to bed, please?”

“Sounds like a plan to me!” Chloe giggles, giving me a long kiss and leading me to bed, where I lay down with a long, heavy sigh.

“…I’m really tired,” I say in an apologetic voice.

“I’m not,” Chloe purrs.

“I can tell!” I chuckle, before wriggling my right arm free. “Take my hand, knock yourself out.”

“Will do!” Chloe giggles as she turns out the light…

When I wake up the following morning, the first thing I notice is the tired throbbing in my head, even though I only had one alcoholic drink last night. The second thing I notice is the flame-haired girl sprawled out in bed next to me, sleeping so deeply that even my uncoordinated shuffling about to get comfortable isn’t even coming close to waking her.

“Chlo,” I whisper, nudging the slumbering girl. “Hey, Chlo…”

“Mmph,” Chloe grunts as her eyes flutter open. “…Ian?”

“Were you dreaming about me?” I tease.

“Shut up,” Chloe moans as I give her a gentle kiss on her cheek. “…You can do that again though, if you want! What time is it, anyway?”

“It- urgh,” I groan as I look at my phone. “Almost 10am, heh.”

“Meh, no reason to get up today, though!” Chloe teases.

“Now that’s definitely true!” I reply with a giggle. “Is Lee planning on going to the studio today?”

“If he is it’ll only be to do repairs on Chwilen,” I reply. “And she didn’t really need that many after yesterday so I was thinking we might have a look around the city today? You know, you and me?”

“…What, in Glasgow?” Chloe snorts. “Is there even anything to see up here?”

“The Necropolis looks cool, and there are a lot of great places to eat,” I reply. “I did a bit of Googling before we came up here in case we had any free time.”

“Well- okay, I guess,” Chloe shrugs as she slides out of bed and pads toward our en-suite. “Guess I’ll get to hang out with Dara and Angela tomorrow anyway, heh!” …And me, I self-pityingly think to myself as I lay back down in our bed.

A short while later, after both of us have dressed in the smartest, most fashionable clothes we brought on our trip (Chloe expressly forbidding me from wearing my team hoodie), the two of us stroll through the bustling city centre of Scotland’s largest city hand in hand, taking in the sights and sounds- though it’s obvious I’m enjoying things more than Chloe.

“Have you ever been to Scotland before?” I ask my girlfriend, who replies with a disinterested shake of her head.

“Parents took us to watch Wales vs Scotland in the rugby once, that’s the closest I’ve got,” Chloe shrugs. “Hannah went to a Harry Potter convention in Edinburgh once, she said that city was nice.”

“That sounds cool,” I shrug.

“Though if memory serves, aren’t you coming back up here again in a few months?” Chloe asks, her mood instantly perking up.

“Am I?” I ask, before remembering the wedding invitation I received a few weeks ago. “Oh, right, for Jessica and Paige, yeah.”

“Another park of this,” Chloe coos, gently stroking the shirt sleeve that’s covering my tattoo. “And when I say ‘you’re’ coming back up here, I really mean ‘we’re’ coming back, right?”

“’Course, babe,” I reply with a gentle kiss. “Reckon Jacinta might bring Lee to that one too so we might make it a proper road trip up to Scotland. Another one, heh!”

“Do you know how many of the Angels will be going to the wedding?” Chloe asks.

“Umm… Jamie definitely will be,” I reply. “Kelly might, but I’m not sure how close to the others Jess and Paige are. It’ll probably be just their colleagues from the airline going.”

“Huh, okay,” Chloe says, her enthusiasm deflating. “It was cool when they all came to Cardiff for your birthday though, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I reply.

“Probably won’t be able to persuade Dara and Angela to come to your nineteenth, though?” Chloe asks.

“Might be pushing it a bit,” I reply, making my girlfriend giggle as we roam through the streets and the shops.

After a couple of hours, we make our way to a posh, independent coffee shop near the centre of the city, where we sit at a table that’s been saved for us by Neil and Rob, both of whom have obviously enjoyed their free day exploring Glasgow.

“Good afternoon, lovebirds!” Neil teases as Chloe and I sit down.

“Good afternoon, lovebirds!” I retort, making Neil and Rob roll their eyes simultaneously.

“Hysterical,” Rob snorts. “I ordered a pizza for you, should be here in a bit. You two been enjoying the sights and sounds of the city?”

“Yep,” I reply. “Been having fun. Lee not with you, then?”

“Tinkering with Chwilen,” Neil shrugs. “Think he’s at the studio now but, you know, just in the pits. We’ve just been looking in shops today, didn’t want to get in his way.”

“Reckon he’d mind if we dropped in on him?” Chloe asks.

“Could always text him and ask, I guess,” Rob shrugs. “What, you’d rather spend your day around machine oil than hanging off your boyfriend?”

“There’s just not a lot to see in Glasgow,” Chloe shrugs. “Maybe if I’d come with another girl, I dunno.”

“Aww, thanks,” I say, giving my girlfriend a playful cuddle that makes her giggle. “…Come on, you know I always take that as a compliment, right?”

“You’re coming up to your two year mark in a bit, aren’t you?” Rob asks, grinning as I nod. “Outside your family, do you even still speak to anyone who knew ‘Kayleigh-Ann’?”

“Not really,” I reply. “Well, Abbey-Gayle and her hangers-on, but I hardly ever see them, even when I go to London.”

“Weird to think you were almost an Angel yourself!” Chloe says.

“Don’t remind me,” I snort. “Nah, that’s all part of my past now. You guys are my REAL friends and this is who I REALLY am.”

“Hear hear!” Rob chuckles. “I remember some of the horror stories you told us in the past, sounds like you’re much better off out of that environment.”

“Definitely,” I say. “I know if I was still in London, even if I was living the way I am and not ‘Kayleigh-Ann’, mum would be constantly on my back about the Robot Wars thing, pressuring me into trying to make industry contacts, that sort of thing.”

“Ugh,” Neil spits. “Just sit back and enjoy it, that’s what I’m doing.”

“Yep,” I say with a grin. “A month after it’s broadcast it’ll probably be completely forgotten, heh.”

“Meh, I’ll remember it,” Rob shrugs. “I’ll be lording it over Simon until the end of time, that’s for sure.”

“Rhiannon’s a little bit less bothered about it, heh,” Neil chuckles. “How about you, Chloe?”

“Hmm?” My girlfriend replies, having obviously been lost in thought. “I’m sorry?”

“You’ve got three brothers and sisters, haven’t you?” Neil asks. “Any of them jealous at your brush with fame?”

“A little,” Chloe shrugs, confusing me as it’s not what she told me earlier about her sisters. “They’d probably be more jealous if I went to an Angel party though, heh! Well, Rosie would, anyway.”

“We’ll get there soon, I promise,” I say softly.

“You could get there whenever you want,” Chloe snorts, making me frown.

“…What’s that supposed to mean?” I reply.

“Oh- umm, nothing,” Chloe mumbles, returning her attention to our pizza.

“No- no you meant something by it,” I say, my frustration levels rising. Chloe’s been ‘off’ all the time we’ve been in Scotland and today has been even worse. It’s almost like she’s disappointed with the way the trip has gone and is expecting me to make up for it- and I really, really hope I’m wrong about the way I think she expects me to make up for it…

“Okay, maybe I did mean something by it,” Chloe says, putting her pizza down and staring at me with an angry look in her eyes.

“See you back at the hotel!” Neil says as he and Rob hastily grab their coats and leave the café.

“So, then…?” I ask.

“You have got it so, so lucky,” Chloe says, slowly changing my frustration into anger.

“’Lucky’!?” I scoff, attracting the attention of nearby diners. “How, exactly, could you call my life ‘lucky’!?”

“You can open up your phone right now and chat to any number of famous friends on Facebook,” Chloe replies. “You have girls flinging themselves at you everywhere you go. You have everything anyone could ever want, and you just throw it all away.” I feel my blood pressure start to rise with every word Chloe says. How dare she imply that I, for even one second, have had it easy? How dare she trivialise the hell that was my early life- a hell I have told her about on countless occasions. And how dare she see me as nothing but a passport to these celebrities she’s idolised for so long. All of a sudden, the last six months I’ve spent with Chloe have had a VERY different light cast on them.

“Are you fucking joking?” I snarl. “Am I ‘lucky’ to have parents who have judged me my whole life and hate me just for being who I am? Am I ‘lucky’ to be trapped in a body that makes me want to scream every second of every day? Am I ‘lucky’ to panic every time I go out, worrying that someone will see ‘through’ me? And am I lucky to have a girlfriend who-“ I pause as I realise that what I say next may have some VERY unfortunate consequences.

“…A girlfriend who does what, Ian?” Chloe asks. I take a deep breath to clear my mind before proceeding. If Chloe wants honesty, then she’ll have it.

“A girlfriend who sees me just as a meal ticket,” I say. “To get herself a bunch of celebrity friends.” I grimace as Chloe’s right hand suddenly raises and leaves a sharp, stinging imprint on my cheek. She has a look of pure fury in her eyes and, much to my surprise, a lot of tears as well.

“Is that what you really think?” Chloe asks.

“…I didn’t before we came here,” I mumble in reply, my face still smarting from Chloe’s slap.

“I went out with you because I really, really liked you,” Chloe says, her voice trembling with emotion. “At least- I used to, anyway.”

“Ch- Chloe…” I whisper, tears forming in my eyes as I realise that I may have just destroyed what was easily the best relationship I’ve ever had.

“I’m going back to the hotel,” Chloe emotionally announces. “Find somewhere else to sleep tonight, you selfish bastard.” With what little dignity I have left, I finish my drink, grab my coat and walk out of the café, my cheeks burning as the eyes of every other diner follow me out the door.

Once outside, I let out a long, quiet moan of pain and frustration before making the long walk back to our hotel. I like Chloe, I really do- she’s cute, she’s funny, she’s friendly, she’s extremely good looking and, most importantly, she has zero hang-ups about dating and being ‘physical’ with a transgendered guy. It would have been easy to just swallow my pride and go along with what Chloe wanted, introducing her to my friends in London, being the public figure she clearly wants me to be… Except for the fact that that was exactly what my mother wanted her whole life, and the more I examine the situation, the more I realise that there are far more similarities between Chloe and my mother than I’d care to admit.

For all Chloe’s protests, she’s been on me all week to try to interact more with the famous hosts of the show. She’s constantly fiddled with my appearance and told me what I can and can’t wear- all things I put up with for the first sixteen years of my life and thought I’d escaped. Obviously I was wrong to think that I’d ever be able to escape this stress. I can only see one way to get away from the anxiety I feel right now- and as it’s the same way I escaped the anxiety I felt when I lived in London, it’s going to let a lot of people down…

“…Hello?” Lee asks as he answers his phone after the fourth ring. “Ian? What’s up, mate?”

“Ugh, every-fucking-thing,” I sigh. “Just had a HUGE fight with Chloe.”

“Oh, mate,” Lee says sympathetically. “What happened?”

“Noticed how Chloe’s been trying to insert her nose into the arse of every celebrity she’s seen?” I ask with a snort.

“Can’t honestly say that I have,” Lee replies, making me frown. “Then again I have kinda had my own hands full the last few days. But if that’s it, that’s not much to have a fight over, is it?”

“It is when I’ve spent the first sixteen years of my life constantly having to endure the same thing,” I reply. “Trust me, I know it when I see it.”

“Or maybe you just see it everywhere you look,” Lee retorts, making me pause. “Look, mate, I’m hardly the world’s biggest relationship expert, but even I know not to throw away a good thing.”

“What if you thought it was a good thing, but it turned out to be toxic all along?” I ask.

“I repeat,” Lee sighs, “not the world’s biggest relationship expert’. You still going to be up for tomorrow?”

“I- I dunno,” I sigh. “I’m sorry, but I- I just want to go back to Cardiff, want to forget the whole thing…”

“If you’re gonna be this distracted you’d probably be a liability anyway,” Lee says. “No offence, mate.”

“None taken, I think,” I say.

“Just wish it wasn’t our back-up driver who you’d fallen out with,” Lee sighs. “If she’s as hung up as you are…”

“Yeah, well, we’ll find out if she shows up tomorrow, won’t we?” I snort. “Sorry again for leaving you in the lurch like this, mate.”

“Hey, if your mind’s not on it, don’t worry,” Lee says. “I know you weren’t comfortable with the idea of being on TV anyway so I’m really grateful that you were able to do as much as you did.” I blink as Lee thanks me for my effort as it’s probably the first time I’ve ever actually received praise for trying from anyone- and coming from Wales’s most sarcastic man, it means almost ten times as much as it would from anyone else. Well, apart from two people, anyway…

“Cheers mate,” I say. “See you back in Cardiff. And good luck.”

“Thanks,” Lee says as I end the call with a heavy sigh.

A short while later, I arrive at the hotel where I’ve been staying for the last two nights and get in the lift to head up to my room, only to be intercepted halfway down the corridor by Neil and Rob- the latter of whom is, alarmingly, carrying my suitcase.

“Hi mate,” Rob says, handing the heavy case over to me.

“Hey,” I say. “Chloe packed my bag for me, then?” The awkward look on my friends’ faces tells me there’s more to the story than just that.

“Not so much ‘packed’ as ‘hurled out into the corridor’,” Rob sighs. “You might want to check everything’s there. She was really, REALLY pissed off.”

“Put it this way,” Neil continues, “we were only able to save your stuff because we actually heard it hitting the floor outside and were able to persuade Chloe to just give it to us instead.”

“I- I should, umm,” I mumble.

“If the rest of that sentence is ‘talk to her’, I really wouldn’t,” Rob sighs. “She looked really, really upset, and I’m pretty sure she started crying after she finished clearing out your stuff.”

“Let me guess,” I sigh as bad memories come flooding back to me, “holding her hand up to her forehead and looking like she was about to faint?”

“Well- umm, no,” Neil says. “She just looked, you know, upset, that kind of thing.” An awkward silence fills the corridor as my friends try to figure out how to respond to my (from their perspective) unusual question.

“She did, umm, kinda do one other thing…” Rob grimaces as Neil holds up an object that makes my heart sink- my trusty Arsenal cap, or rather, what’s left of it after it’s been assaulted by some kind of sharp instrument like a razor blade.

“…Fuck her,” I spit as I take the cap and my bag and walk away.

“Dude, it’s just a hat,” Neil says.

“It’s not just the hat,” I sigh. “It- ugh. I- just say hi to Lee for me when you see, him please? I’ll see you guys when you get home.”

“Ian, mate,” Neil pleads.

“Thanks for packing my bag for me,” I say with a wave as I walk out of the hotel without looking back and head straight for the main railway station in Glasgow.

A short while (and, annoyingly, just over £50) later, I’m on a train heading southward, and at just after midnight, I’m stepping onto the platform of Cardiff Central station, breathing a sigh of relief at finally being home, but simultaneously feeling disappointed in myself at letting my friends down- and feeling like my heart has been torn in two after my fight with Chloe.

When I get home, grandma is unsurprisingly already in bed, but has left the door unlocked (I called her from the train to let her know what was going on), so I head up to my room and climb straight into bed, letting out a long, frustrated moan, followed by- much to my surprise- a few tears. Over the last two night, I’d grown used to having someone else in bed with me, especially someone as cute, funny and amazing as Chloe. It could be a long while before I have anyone in bed with me again, and even longer before I find anyone I like as much as her…

The following morning, I’m woken by a gentle knock on my bedroom door, followed by the very welcome smell of a rich cup of coffee.

“Ian?” Grandma asks. “Are you awake yet?”

“Mmph,” I grunt in response. “Yeah, yeah, I’m awake. Thanks for the coffee.”

“I thought you might need it after your long trip,” grandma says softly. “How are you feeling?”

“Terrible,” I moan. “Both because of Chloe and ‘cause I feel like I’ve let the guys down…”

“They know you’ve not had an easy life,” grandma says reassuringly. “That you need your space when you’re depressed like this.”

“Yeah, pity no one ever told Chloe,” I snort. “She actually said that I’ve had a lucky life and should be more grateful for all the things I have- especially the things I never asked for.”

“She wouldn’t be saying that if she saw the marks on your arms that I have,” grandma says coldly. “Though I suppose I can see why she might think the way she does.”

“Thanks, I think,” I sigh.

“Just playing devil’s advocate,” grandma says. “I’m not saying she was right to say what she did because she obviously wasn’t, and the reason she wasn’t was because she doesn’t know you as well as she thinks she does.”

“Yep, that pretty much sums her up,” I sigh. “Only interested in what this tattoo on my arm represents and wants to ride my ‘fame’ herself. Remind you of anyone?” I flinch as grandma’s face adopts a very stern expression- she very clearly does know who I’m referring to.

“It’s no wonder you reacted as badly as you did,” grandma says quietly. “I still say that you should talk to Chloe when she returns from Scotland. Explain the situation to her calmly rather than shouting at her.”

“If it’ll sink in,” I sigh. “Which is a big ‘if’.”

“You won’t know until you try,” grandma advises. “Do you have anything you want to do today?”

“Stay in bed all day feeling sorry for myself,” I mumble.

“Well obviously I won’t approve of THAT,” grandma says. “But after the last few days I think you’ve earned a lazy day. Let me know when you’re up and I’ll get some breakfast ready, then you can spend the whole day on your computer game if you want?”

“Sounds great,” I sigh. “Thanks, grandma.”

“You just focus on getting yourself better,” grandma says. “There are plenty more girls out there, better ones than Chloe.”

“Yeah,” I say, nodding in agreement with the first part of what grandma said, but I’m having a hard time believing that there are any girls out there who are better than Chloe- regardless of how angry she makes me feel right now…

I eventually get up just after 11am, and after showering, unpacking and eating a big, filling breakfast, I sprawl out on the sofa, Xbox controller in hand. I stay on the sofa for most of the afternoon, but my gaming session is interrupted just after 2pm when my phone rings- though a quick glance at the caller ID reveals that it isn’t my (possibly) ex-girlfriend calling.

“Hi Lee,” I say, answering the phone. “What’s up?”

“Hey Ian,” Lee replies. “Just thought you’d want to know how it went in the big battle royal, for the wild card entry in the final.”

“Did you win?” I ask.

“Came third in the battle royal,” Lee says with a sigh. “Flipped out of the arena AGAIN. But we did better than I thought we would, and Chwilen’s mostly undamaged, just a few knocks and gashes in the armour, that’s all.”

“Commiserations,” I say with a shrug. “You on your way home?”

“Just packing up the van then heading back,” Lee says hesitantly. “Ian, she- Chloe drove during the battle royal.”

“Yeah, of course she did,” I sigh. “Is she- is she okay?”

“Honestly?” Lee replies. “I don’t think so. She did seem a bit down, didn’t talk about you at all, just wanted to get on with it… She’s going back in Rob’s car, and I- I’d kinda give her some space if I were you.”

“Will do,” I sigh. “Thanks for letting me know, mate.”

“Are you holding up okay?” Lee asks. “From what Neil and Rob told me it sounded like one hell of a fight.”

“I’ve been better,” I sigh. “Nah, I’ll be alright. Plenty more fish etc.”

“Mate, when I said ‘give her space’ I didn’t mean ‘never talk to her again’,” Lee says. “She’s upset, and she wouldn’t be this upset if she didn’t really like you.”

“This is complicated and frustrating,” I sigh.

“This is a girl we’re talking about, mate,” Lee chuckles. “’Complicated and frustrating’ is about as good a description as I’ve ever heard.”

“Me too, and I’ve got ‘insider knowledge’,” I retort, making Lee laugh loudly. “Being a girl is about a hundred times as complicated and frustrating as dating one, be thankful you don’t ever have to deal with that.”

“Will do,” Lee says. “We’ll be back in Cardiff around 9 or 10 ish, probably won’t get to see you today, but talk tomorrow?”

“Yeah, should be free after church, I’m not at work this weekend until Monday,” I say. “See you at your place?”

“Gonna be busy with repairs,” Lee says. “Now that we’ve got the first time under our belts, I want to get cracking as soon as possible so that she’s even tougher next year!”

“Fair enough,” I shrug. “See you later, Lee.”

“See you later mate,” Lee says as he ends the call and I lay back on the sofa, letting out another long, pained sigh.

The fact that Chloe drove the robot should be proof that she’s only after getting herself on TV, but Lee’s tale of how upset Chloe was during the recording tells a different story. He’s right when he says that she wouldn’t be anywhere near as upset if she didn’t really like me, and I speak from experience here. Before they got with their current boyfriends, Brooke and Georgie would get together with random boys, sometimes for weeks at a time, only to dump them from out of nowhere and then not give them a second thought. And it’s pretty telling that their current boyfriends are both brothers of Angels, as is the fact that Chloe agreed to go out with me before she ever discovered about my connection with those same Angels. Everything I’m being told tells me that she likes me for me- but everything I see with my own eyes says otherwise. But maybe those eyes have been blinded after sixteen years of living with someone like my mother, I don’t know.

I spend the rest of the day in front of my Xbox before heading to bed just after 10pm (I have to be up early for church tomorrow as it’s Good Friday). Unlike last night, I have difficulty sleeping as I try to run the situation around in my mind. Chloe will be back at her place right now, sleeping in her own bed, just as alone as I am. I can’t help but wonder if I’m occupying her thoughts just as much as she’s occupying mine, or if she’s already forgotten me just as Brooke and Georgie would have. Frustratingly, there’s only one way to find out…

I get up at 8am the following morning and head through to the bathroom to get ready, sighing as my eyes are immediately drawn to my razor. In the three days since our first recording, my facial hair has grown, not enough to be considered a beard but more than enough to now qualify as ‘stubble’- the exact same stubble that Chloe wanted me to show off to the cameras. Reluctantly, I smear my face in shaving foam and remove the stubble, leaving me with the same smooth face I had for the first sixteen years of my life. I’m satisfied that the facial hair will grow back, of course- it’s whether or not I want this face to be the one that speaks to Chloe that I’m unsure about…

After dressing in a smart pair of trousers, a button-up shirt and my best lace-up shoes, I follow my equally smartly-dressed grandmother down to her car, and a short while later the two of us are sat in our usual pew at our local church, listening intently as Reverend Stubbs narrates the events of the first Good Friday two thousand years ago while a group of teenagers from a local secondary school put on a play of the events. After the service is over, grandma and I bid farewell to the priest, and as always, he seems to instantly sense that all isn’t well with me.

“So then, Ian,” Reverend Stubbs says with a sigh. “Exam stress or girl trouble?”

“S- sorry?” I ask.

“Oh, wait, it was your big recording day in Scotland on Thursday, wasn’t it?” Reverend Stubbs asks with a chuckle.

“Umm, Tuesday, but yes,” I say with a chuckle. “…And to answer your first question, it’s girl trouble this time. Not that I don’t have stress about my exams, heh. Or stress about being TV, or the one ‘big stress’, heh.”

“You’ve got a lot on your shoulders for someone so young,” Reverend Stubbs says softly. “Though most people your age are in this boat, at least as far as exams go. And probably as far as girls go too.”

“Let me guess: God doesn’t give us any more than we can cope with?” I ask.

“I’ve never been a big fan of that statement,” Reverend Stubbs confesses. “If it was true, suicide wouldn’t be a thing. But I like to think that God doesn’t give us any more than we can cope with once we’ve shared it with others. Real friends will always help you through any problems you have.”

“Yeah,” I say with a sigh. “What about when your girlfriend IS the problem?”

“Then maybe she’s the best person to help you through it?” Reverend Stubbs suggests, making me sigh. “Let me guess- you’d already reached that conclusion yourself, and were hoping I’d suggest something else?”

“…Something like that,” I mumble.

“No such luck, I’m afraid,” Reverend Stubbs says with a chuckle. “Couples fall out from time to time. I’ve had a few arguments with my husband that nearly stripped paint off the wall. But I love him, and he loves me, and that’s what’s most important. If you and Chloe are still good you’ll be able to work it out.”

“And if we’re not still good?” I ask.

“Better you find out now than later on so you don’t waste any more time,” Reverend Stubbs shrugs. “Now go on, enjoy your Easter break. And don’t eat too many Easter eggs!”

“It’s just nice to be allowed to eat them at all,” I chuckle, shuddering at the 'healthy' vegan alternatives I was forced to endure when I was younger. “Thanks for the advice.”

“Our door is always open,” Reverend Stubbs says. “Mine and my boss’s!” I have a genuine smile on my face for the first time in a while as we head out to the car park and get back in grandma’s car, but it soon fades as I realise that I still have to deal with the Chloe problem- and as the vicar has pointed out, there’s only one person who I can talk to to solve it.

“…Can we make a detour on the way home?” I ask grandma, before letting out a long sigh.

A short while later, I’m stood outside Chloe’s front door, my nerves jangling as I ring the doorbell. I force a smile on my face as the door opens and a familiar mane of flame-coloured hair comes into view- however, my smile instantly vanishes when I realise that this particular hair doesn’t belong to Chloe.

“Get lost, pervert!” Hannah screeches, practically throwing the door at me in her eagerness to slam it in my face.

“Wait!” I say firmly, holding the door open. Realising that I’m far stronger than her, Hannah gives up on her effort to slam the door- though this only seems to make her even angrier.

“Get lost or I’ll call the police and have you arrested for trespassing!” Hannah spits.

“I want to talk to Chloe,” I say, trying as hard as I can to keep my emotions in check.

“Fine, then I’ll have you arrested for attempted rape as well,” Hannah sneers.

“Yeah, ‘cause that would’ve worked so well for you on the beach, wouldn’t it?” I retort, smirking as Hannah’s face slowly turns red. “Chloe! It’s Ian! I want to talk!”

“She doesn’t want to talk to you!” Hannah growls. “If you’re not gone in ten seconds I WILL call the police!”

“Okay, fine!” I sigh. “I’m gone. Chloe! You know where to find me!” I sigh as Hannah finally gets her way and the front door is slammed in my face, though as I head back to the car, I can’t help but notice the curtains of one of the upstairs rooms fluttering- and I happen to know for a fact that the room in question is Chloe’s bedroom…

“Didn’t go well, then?” Grandma asks as I climb back into her car.

“Hard to see how it could’ve gone worse,” I moan. “It wasn’t Chloe herself I spoke to, it was her older sister.”

“Oh,” grandma says. “Was she the one who you met on the beach that one time?”

“That’s her,” I sigh. “Just as obnoxious as ever. Didn’t even see Chloe though I reckon she knows I was there.”

“What do you want to do now?” Grandma asks.

“I dunno,” I sigh. “Talking to Chloe isn’t an option, obviously. I- I may as well go round and see if Lee wants a hand fixing up the robot.”

“Not in your best clothes, you won’t!” Grandma scolds. “I’ll take you home first to change.”

“Thanks,” I sigh as we head back home.

About half an hour later- after changing into a pair of scruffy jeans and a sweatshirt- I watch intently as Lee carefully dismantles Chwilen’s outer shell, revealing the level of damage she sustained during her stay in Scotland. The armour has been battered, with gashes and bumps all over it, but the internal elements, the electronic parts of Chwilen, are virtually undamaged. Chwilen came back from Scotland with a lot of external bruises but is absolutely fine on the inside- the exact opposite of how I came back.

“We are going to need to drink a LOT of Coke this summer,” Lee sighs as he holds up a piece of the shell that even I can tell is damaged beyond repair.

“Yep,” I say with a chuckle. “Gonna change the design for next year?”

“Probably not,” Lee replies. “It’s a good design, we just need more, you know, ‘live experience’. We’ll get it next year.”

“I’m happy to keep practising, being the driver if you want,” I shrug. “Now I know what to expect, now they know what NOT to expect from me, that sort of thing.”

“Thanks mate,” Lee says, before letting out a sigh. “Reckon I’ll need to find a new back-up driver, though.”

“Yeah,” I sigh. “Still not talked to her yet. Tried to and got a face full of Hannah instead.”

“Urgh,” Lee spits. “I mean, ordinarily, a face full of a cute petite ginger girl wouldn’t be something I’d say no to, but when it’s her… Yeah.”

“You prefer faces full of nearly six foot tall transgendered girls, then?” I tease.

“If anyone’s getting the ‘face full’, it’s Jacinta, and I’ll leave it at that,” Lee replies. “Speaking of, I’m heading down to London tomorrow, just FYI. Gonna have a look around the uni I’ve been accepted to.”

“Cool,” I say.

“And, yes, have a look around Jacinta as well,” Lee says with a smug grin.

“Obviously,” I retort.

“Ah- sorry if I’m rubbing it in,” Lee says. “Innuendo not intended this time.”

“Thanks mate,” I sigh. “I dunno. I’m off work tomorrow so I’ll head down to Chloe’s again, see if I can talk to someone other than the wicked not-step-sister.”

“…Looks like you might get your chance earlier than you think,” Lee says, gazing over my shoulder to the corner of his garden, where a familiar petite redhead is stood with a nervous look on her face.

“Ch- Chloe?” I ask, smirking as my girlfriend nervously waves at me.

“Hi…” Chloe says in a voice barely louder than a whisper. “Your- your grandma said you’d be here… Do- do you have time to, you know, talk?”

“Sure, of course!” I say.

“Into the shed I go,” Lee says, wheeling his robot out of sight and allowing me and Chloe to talk privately.

“I- umm…” I mumble. “I- I’m sorry…”

“So am I,” Chloe mumbles. “You- your grandmother explained why you were so stressed out, the whole thing with your mother… It’s, like, your biggest ‘button’ and I just stomped on it.”

“No, I shouldn’t have snapped at you like I did,” I sigh. “Especially not you, of all people. You were excited and I ruined it all with my mood.”

“Don’t apologise for being depressed!” Chloe says, reaching forward and tentatively linking her fingers with mine. “I see now it wasn’t your fault, not really. I overreacted to your overreaction. Think we can both share the blame for this fight.”

“…Yeah,” I sigh. “And it was, you know, a huge one. Didn’t even know if you’d want to see me again.”

“Of course I would!” Chloe pleads. “I’m the only girl in the world who can say ‘Ian Freeman is my boyfriend’. I’m not going to let a stupid fight get in the way of THAT. We needed to talk. We’re talking, and I don’t know about you, but I’m already feeling better.”

“Me too,” I chuckle. “So, umm… Will- will you still, you know, go out with me?” I grin as my question is answered by a long, soft kiss.

“Obviously, that was a ‘yes’,” Chloe giggles. “And I do mean ‘you’, not your public profile, not your social media followers, not even your famous friends. Just YOU.”

“Thanks,” I whisper, before returning Chloe’s kiss. “And I’m sorry again if I hurt you.”

“So am I,” Chloe whispers, before scowling. “And I’m sorry for my sister as well, I heard her shouting at you, and- ugh. You know she’s actually saying that she might not watch the next series of Doctor Who, just because the Doctor’s now played by a woman? And it’s, like, her favourite show EVER.”

“She’s definitely overcompensating for something,” I shrug. “I would ask if it was possible for a girl to get penis envy, but I’m kinda living proof there, heh.”

“Living proof of what?” Chloe asks. “I don’t see any girl here apart from me?”

“…Thanks,” I giggle, exchanging another kiss with my girlfriend as my tension completely vanishes.

“I promise I won’t trigger you again,” Chloe says. “No more ‘celebrity pressure’. You’d have more than your fair share of that. If you want to be a nerd and spend all day tinkering with robots, that’s fine with me. Speaking of which, what have you- sorry, what have WE got planned for tomorrow?” A grin spreads across my face as I stare over at the shed where Lee and Chwilen are, and I recall him telling me his plans for tomorrow…

The following morning, I feel a tingle of excitement pass through my body as Lee and I step off the train at Paddington station- though this is nothing compared to the energy that’s buzzing through my girlfriend’s petite frame right now. A short while later, after picking up Jacinta from her flat, the four of us head to a packed coffee shop near the centre of the city, taking our seats at the table that’s been saved for us. Well, three of us take our seats- Chloe freezes to the spot when she sees who it was who saved our seats for us”

“Hi,” Jamie says as she exchanges a feminine handshake with my girlfriend. “You must be Chloe, it’s so good to FINALLY meet you, hehe!”

“Yeah, hehe!” Chloe squeaks in response as I have to actually drag her into her chair.

“Stuart you already know,” Jamie says as her husband smirks and greets us with a wave. “And this little one in the high chair is Olivia, hehe!”

“She is SO cute,” Chloe sighs as the little girl giggles at the sound of her name.

“She’s a bit of a handful,” Stuart chuckles as he gently strokes his daughter’s short but growing hair. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, though. Though speaking of handfuls, it was your recording this week, wasn’t it?”

“Yes it was,” Lee replies with a smug grin.

“Gonna tell us how it went?” Stuart asks.

“No I’m not,” Lee says with an even smugger grin. “You can watch it for yourself this summer.”

“Meh, I tried,” Stuart shrugs as his wife looks on disapprovingly.

“Boys and their toys eh, Chloe?” Jamie asked.

“Well, umm, actually, I drove it too,” Chloe says nervously. “For one fight, you know…”

“You let her drive, then?” Stuart asks me. “That’s a good boyfriend, heh!”

“Yeah… I didn’t so much ‘let’ her drive,” I grimace.

“Oh, you- you two had a bit of a tiff?” Jamie asks.

“Just a bit,” I sigh, before reaching onto the table a visibly squeezing my girlfriend’s hand. “We talked it through, though.”

“Good,” Jamie whispers. “Heh, they’re never pleasant, I remember me and Stuart dropping a few atomic bombs before we got married.”

“None since, though,” Stuart says. “None I can remember since we got engaged actually. Ah, thanks, Laura.” Stuart smiles as our waitress- another member of our ‘fellowship’- brings Stuart his and Jamie’s lunch.

“Are you guys ready to order yet?” Laura asks us.

“Give us a few more minutes, please,” Jacinta replies. “Though I’d really recommend the chips here, they cook them in proper sea salt and have lots of different seasonings like Mexican, or Indian…”

“Sounds delicious,” Chloe says, before turning to me with a smile. “I’ll get both our lunches babe.”

“Nah, you don’t have to do that, I’ll pay,” I reply.

“No, seriously, I can pay,” Chloe insists.

“Guys?” Lee says accusingly, making me and my girlfriend blush and roll our eyes.

“…Sorry,” I mumble.

“Nah, this is one of those ‘acceptable’ arguments,” Stuart chuckles. “Think it’s, like, on a list or something.”

“And it just shows what a cute couple you two make,” Jacinta chuckles. “You sticking around tonight? There’s no party as it was last night instead, but we could, you know, show you the sights?”

“Would love to, but we’ve got to get back tonight,” Chloe sighs. “Though just being here at all is amazing. Totally worth the trip, hehe!”

“If Ian gets into uni in London, you might be here a lot,” Stuart teases.

“If,” I retort. “Still not had any confirmed offers yet. And it’ll be hard to leave grandma alone in Cardiff.”

“Trust me, it won’t be easy whatever you choose,” Jacinta says softly. “I know.”

“It’ll be even harder leaving Chloe, heh,” I chuckle, earning ‘aww’s from all the girls at the table- especially my girlfriend!

“Yeah… You guys are good, I can tell,” Jamie giggles as Chloe leans her petite body against mine and lets out a happy, contented sigh.

In truth, though, I’m not as confident as Jamie about the relationship. Sure, I’m happy to have talked things through with Chloe, and very happy about the fact that she’ll be snuggled up against me all the way back to Cardiff, but a part of me still worries if this is the beginning of the end for us. I’ve seen an element of my mother in Chloe, and while that’s problematic for most men, for me it’s very nearly a deal breaker. Chloe’s behaviour in Scotland was abhorrent to me, and her gushing over Jamie is understandable, but still troubling.

However, Chloe differs from my mother in one very important way- she apologised. She took steps to correct her behaviour rather than blame everyone else for her problems, and that counts for a lot. En route back to the station, she even stops off at a sporting goods store and buys me a cap to replace the one she’d destroyed- a sure sign that Chloe is definitely NOT like my mother. And I suppose I shouldn’t be too worried- we’re both still teenagers, we both have a lot of learning to do, and we both like each other a LOT, which has to count for something, right? Even if, come September, our relationship might be a long-distance one.

I just hope we don’t ever have any recurrences of what happened in Scotland- and I hope that I don’t end up as obsessed with this ‘culture’ as Chloe is, because as much as I hate myself for doing so, a part of me is REALLY looking forward to the show being broadcast…

I take a deep breath as I wake up, but even this action is enough to cause me a lot of pain in my chest. As I open my eyes, I’m briefly confused by my surroundings- this isn’t my bedroom in Cardiff, or even my old bedroom in London, but somewhere else… A hospital? That’d explain the pain in my chest, anyway…

“Good morning,” a familiar Welsh accent says, chilling the blood in my veins as I slowly turn my head and come face to face with my mother, and the stern look on her face…

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THREE WEEKS EARLIER

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“Something long, thick and round or something wide, flat and round?” Lee asks, making me chuckle as my girlfriend replies with a disgusted snort.

“And what, exactly, is wrong with the words ‘hot dog’ or ‘burger’?” Chloe replies.

“Less funny,” Lee replies as he continues cooking our lunch on his barbecue, while I and the rest of ‘Team Chwilen’ relax in his back garden. The whole of the UK is currently in the middle of a massive heatwave, and the five of us aren’t going to pass up the opportunity to relax in the Sun- even though this could be one of our last chances to hang out together for a long time.

In September, Lee and I will be moving to London to start university, Lee studying robotics at University College London while I study graphic design at University of the Arts, London. These offers were by far the best that either of us received, so we both jumped at the chance, even if it means leaving Neil and Rob, who’ll be studying computer programming at Cardiff University, leaving grandma alone- again- and, worst of all, leaving Chloe.

After our reconciliation following our fight while recording Robot Wars, Chloe and I have grown closer than ever. Sure, her family can’t stand the idea of us being together, and grandma still goes out of her way to not leave us alone together, but we still find time to be intimate wherever we can. Chloe has stated too that she intends to study costume design at the London College of Fashion next year anyway.

After Robot Wars was broadcast, all five of us started getting a lot more attention from both our college mates and on social media in general. Unsurprisingly, Lee hogged most of this attention, but thankfully, most of the rest seemed to go to Chloe. She didn’t mind this one bit, of course, and nor did I- seeing her happy made me happy, and confirmed to me that despite her love of fame and celebrity, Chloe is NOT my mother.

…Who, naturally, called after our first episode of Robot Wars was broadcast to ‘see how I was’. Or, to put it another way, to see if I was being recognised on the street, if I’d had any offers from any TV companies… Grandma keeps trying to persuade me that mum calls when she does because she genuinely cares about me, and yet I can’t help but notice that when she called after Robot Wars, that was all she asked about- no questions about Chloe, or about college or uni. When it was explained to her that I’d be attending uni in London, all she could think about was that I’d be closer to my famous friends- and, worst of all, closer to her.

As much as I’m not looking forward to leaving Cardiff, knowing my parents are waiting for me in London just makes it all the worse. Last I’d heard, mum and dad were still separated, though I couldn't say whether or not they've reconciled or started divorce proceedings. Or whether or not Grandma Walker will allow my dad to divorce my mum. Of course, I’m not obliged to live with them or even see them while I’m in London, but knowing that they’re in the same country as me is enough to give me shivers, let alone the same city. Especially as, despite it being what mum wants, I genuinely am looking forward to hanging out more with Stuart, Jamie and the other guys. I nearly declined the UAL offer in favour of a uni in Cardiff or somewhere closer (I also had offers from universities in Birmingham and Bristol), but it was grandma of all people who persuaded me to go to London, saying that I need my independence but I’ll still have friends who support me (like Lee or Stuart). Secretly though, I think she’s still hoping that mum and I can reconcile, be the mother and son that we never were as mother and daughter. I’ve warned her not to hold her breath.

In the meantime though, we have a long, hot summer to enjoy, and I fully intend to make the most of it, even if I am sunbathing in a t-shirt while the other guys all have their tops off. None of them are making a big deal of this, of course, but I still feel self-conscious every time I adjust my sweaty t-shirt, or scratch my side- or a bead of sweat rolls underneath my 'flattening' t-shirt and between my breasts.

“Burger,” Chloe says, snapping me out of my ‘trance’ as she hands me a plate with my lunch on it. “Beer. Technically, am I legally allowed to give you beer, seeing as I’m only seventeen?”

“You’re my girlfriend,” I reply. “I think it’s part of the job description whatever your age.” I chuckle and take a swig of my ice cold beer as Chloe sticks her tongue out at me and sits down next to me.

“I am SO going to miss you when you go to London,” Chloe sighs, snuggling beside me despite the heat.

"Tomorrow or when I go to uni?" I ask, trying not to smirk as my girlfriend threatens to tip her drink over me.

"BOTH," Chloe says as she adjusts her skimpy bikini top. "It's going to be hard, you know?"

“Not as hard as it'll be for me,” I sigh. “Besides, it’ll only be for a year. And I’ll be back whenever I can. Cardiff is my REAL home.”

“Don’t you dare forget it!” Chloe giggles as she sips her Coke. “You won’t run off with the first London girl who flutters her eyelashes at you, then?”

“Never,” I say, giving the petite ginger girl a playful kiss- something that naturally earns jeers from my friends. “Besides, I’ll have a hard time keeping Lee away from them all, heh.” I glance over at the guy who has quickly become my best friend- best male friend, anyway- who has a smile on my face that I know masks a good deal of hurt.

Just before the end of June, on one of her regular trips to Cardiff, Lee’s ‘casual’ girlfriend Jacinta- another member of the transgendered ‘fellowship’ I belong to- came to Wales and told Lee that she no longer wished to be ‘casual’- she wished to be nothing at all. On the surface, Lee took his dumping well, but I’m still worried that he’s taking it hard. Especially as he insists he’s more upset about the BBC cancelling Robot Wars after our series was broadcast. However, he says he wants to be left alone in that regard, so that’s what I’m going to do, even if it is hard to fight my ‘genetic’ instinct to pry further.

“I’ll have to tell him to make sure he hogs all the single girls in London, then,” Chloe giggles.

“Trust me, you won’t have to tell him that, he’s already figured that out for himself,” I retort, intensifying my girlfriend’s giggles. “God, it’s going to be so surreal, moving back to London, you know? But as, like, me, rather than who I used to be.”

“Can imagine,” Chloe sighs. “Though I hope that means you’ll be able to show me around London when I move there next year?”

“’Course, babe,” I reply with a nonchalant shrug that makes my girlfriend roll her eyes, before giving me a playful kiss.

‘Surreal’ isn’t just a good way of describing me starting university, but it’s also a good way of describing the last two years of my life. Being ‘Ian’ is so different to being ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ that I sometimes feel like pinching myself to make sure it isn’t all a dream. Back when I was ‘Kayleigh-Ann’, the idea of being able to hang out in shorts and a t-shirt, wearing no make-up and sporting hairy legs and a stubbly face seemed as far away as living on Mars. The thought that I’d have good, genuine male friends (unlike Ollie, or even Abbey-Gayle and her gang for that matter) and a girlfriend who was genuinely into me would have been laughable. And yet, here I am, enjoying my summer holiday the way I always dreamed of. I just wish I wasn’t so worried that it could all be taken away at a moment’s notice…

Later that evening, I’m relaxing on the sofa playing a videogame while grandma quietly reads her Kindle, the same as virtually every evening over the last year. After a while, she heads off to bed, and I’m not far behind, smiling as I brush my teeth and shave my face clean (I have work tomorrow). As I head into my bedroom, however, I can immediately tell that all is not right.

“What the hell?” I exclaim as I suddenly find myself back in my- or rather, Kayleigh-Ann’s bedroom back in London. Gone are my shelves with my college books and Star Trek miniatures, replaced by my old dresser and its vast collection of make-up and perfumes. Gone are the piles of jeans and t-shirts in my drawers, replaced by the skirts and dresses I loathed so much. And gone is my relaxed feeling, especially when I hear a voice come from downstairs that chills my blood.

“Kayleigh-Ann?” Mum calls. “Come down here. Kayleigh-Ann? Kayleigh-Ann!” My heart races and I feel a wave of nausea flood over me as my entire body becomes drenched with sweat, and the shouting gets louder, and louder, and louder, until-

“Ahh!” I yell as I wake up in my bed- MY bed, not ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s. After I take several deep breaths to calm myself, I examine my room- my college books and Star Trek ships are back where they should be, as are the jeans that I carelessly dumped on the floor last night before getting into bed. I sigh as I stare at the clock on my phone- 3:35am, hours before I have to get up, but I seriously doubt I’ll get back to sleep.

Nightmares like the one I had are nothing new- in the weeks following my move to Cardiff (and my other, more ‘obvious’ change) I’d have them almost every night, but they gradually became rarer over time, as the ‘new normal’ became simply the ‘normal’. However, as my move back to London grows closer, they’ve started up again with a vengeance…

I eventually get up just after 7:30am, having got precious little sleep during the prior 4 hours. I’m still yawning as I head into work a short while later- something immediately picked up on by my supervisor.

“Try not to yawn all over the counter,” Dean mock-chastises me as I log onto my usual till.

“Ugh, sorry, didn’t sleep much,” I reply.

“’Cause of the heat?” Dean asks.

“More ‘cause of everything that’s going on,” I sigh. “Moving back to London, starting uni… My parents…” Dean rolls his eyes at this final, mumbled bit- he’s had to play ‘agony aunt’ for me several times when I’ve had parental problems (and girlfriend problems, and transitioning problems, and numerous other problems…) and I do get the impression he won’t miss it when I leave the job in September.

“Do your parents even know you’re going to uni in London?” Dean asks.

“I think grandma’s told mum,” I reply. “’Dad’ probably wouldn’t even notice if I’d told him. My other grandmother certainly doesn’t, and I want it to stay that way.”

“Understandable, given what you’ve told me about her,” Dean remarks.

“The one consolation is that mum hates her too,” I say. “Probably the only thing we’ve got in common, heh. I- I’m sorry, I know you don’t like hearing all this…”

“No, but it’s okay,” Dean shrugs. “When are you next seeing your therapist?”

“Today, actually,” I reply. “Straight after work. Got a whole notebook of things to go over, heh. Especially as I’m off to London tomorrow too, heh.”

“So the whole family thing is weighing on your mind a bit?” Dean asks, smiling sympathetically as I nod.

“God knows how bad it’ll be when I’m actually living in London, heh,” I reply.

“But you’re sure you want to go?” Dean asks.

“Tomorrow or September?” I ask, before sighing. “Either way, the answer is ‘I think so’.”

“And I think you should talk to your therapist about this and not me,” Dean says with a snort of laughter as he unlocks the front door of the shop.

With it being summer, the working day is quieter than usual (videogames aren’t in as high demand when it’s blazing hot outside), but at Dean’s insistence I keep my anxieties to myself for the duration of my shift. When I arrive at my counsellor’s office, though, I open up fully- though she isn’t quite as happy with my answers as Dean was.

“When you say ‘you think you’re sure you want to go’,” Dr Harris says, “does this mean you’re having second thoughts about going to university?”

“Not university in general, but London… Yeah, kinda,” I sigh.

“Because of your parents?” Dr Harris asks, smiling supportively as I nod. “London is a big place, a VERY big place. Just because you’ll be living in the same city, it doesn’t mean you’ll have any contact with them.”

“Yes, logically I know that,” I sigh. “But last year, when I went to the football match, mum tracked me down in no time at all, so chances are I’m going to run into them whether I like it or not. It’s not like I can get a restraining order on them or anything, heh.”

“If their behaviour causes you distress, there’s no reason why you can’t,” my counsellor advises. “Ian, you are an adult. You decide what it is you want to do, who you want to be, how you want to live and where you want to live. After the childhood you’ve had, it’s understandable that you’d be anxious about your parents interfering in your life, but they need to understand that it’s your life, and not theirs, and they do not have any right to dictate to you how you live it.”

“I can tell them that until I run out of breath, but they won’t listen,” I snort.

“Then that would be their loss,” Dr Harris says.

“They don’t seem to think so,” I mumble. “Well, I can believe mum’s sad she’s lost her ‘pension fund’. I doubt dad will have even noticed that I was gone, heh. Ugh, I do NOT want to end up like him…”

“No danger of that happening, don’t worry,” Dr Harris assures me. “And it is understandable to be anxious, every teenager moving away to university for the first time feels the same thing, though they obviously don’t have the added stresses of being transgendered.”

“Or crap families,” I say.

“Exactly,” Dr Harris says. “But you do have supportive family in your grandmother, and lots of good friends who genuinely care about you. I get how this might not make up for the years of what can only be called abuse that your parents subjected you to, but you have to understand than you CAN share your stresses with your friends. And when you move to London, you’ll be closer to many more friends who’ll be able to help you as well, right?” I chuckle tiredly as my counsellor points at my tattoo- it’s obvious what she’s implying, even though this is also a topic we’ve discussed before.

“Yeah…” I grimace. “’Cause THAT isn’t going to make my mum stalk me, right?”

“You know,” Dr Harris says, “one of these days I’d really like to talk to your mum, see what caused this obsession with celebrity.”

“She’s a bored housewife who’s never had a job and only gave birth to me so I could fulfil all her fantasies for her,” I retort, before sighing. “…Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s healthy to vent,” Dr Harris says calmly. “Though you really should be telling your mother this. Maybe not using those EXACT words, admittedly.”

“And then watch as she pretends to collapse with depression,” I scoff. “I’d be just as happy if I never spoke to her again.”

“If that was true, it wouldn’t be causing you so much stress,” Dr Harris says, and I’m forced to sigh and concede the point. “To answer your next inevitable question, no, it isn’t too much to ask to have a mother who accepts you for who you are. As I’ve stated repeatedly, you are your own man. Your parents need to recognise this, and if they don’t do of your own accord, you need to at least try to make them recognise this, ideally before you move to London.”

“Think I’d rather gargle with razor blades,” I snort, before an idea pops into my head. “Though there is something… Something that could, you know, ‘demonstrate’ this…”

“I know what you’re referring to,” Dr Harris says stoically. “And yes, it is the next logical step, and I agree that it would be best to get it done before you leave for university. But not while you’re this stressed out. I highly recommend sorting out the situation with your parents first, especially if you’ll be living in London come September.”

“You just said it’s such a big city that we may not even run into each other,” I say.

“And you said that it’s causing you extreme stress,” Dr Harris retorts, and yet again, I’m forced to concede the point. “My advice for the next few days would be to try to forget about your parents. Try to enjoy your time in London, not just for the next couple of days but for the next three years as well. Uni should be an adventure- yes, it’ll be hard work, but it’ll be worth it.”

“Thanks,” I say with a tired chuckle.

“Your life is yours to live, no one else’s,” Dr Harris says as she turns a page in her file, which usually symbolises that we’re about to move onto a new topic. “You’ve more than earned that right, Ian. Don’t forget it.”

“I won’t,” I say confidently as I sit back and try to relax.

However, I can’t help but feel a little twinge of apprehension the following morning as the train pulls into Paddington Station and Lee and I step into the hustle and bustle of the English capital. The apprehension is briefly replaced by exasperation, though, when we step out into the car park and greeted by the sight of a man holding his infant daughter in one hand and a sign with ‘ROBOT NERDS’ written on it in the other.

“I think you’ll find that’s ‘champion robot nerds’,” Lee says as we greet Stuart with a handshake each. “Should’ve been, anyway.” Stuart frowns at Lee’s barb- he knows that I wasn’t driving the robot in the final and he knows the reason why, so Lee’s comment could easily come across as a personal attack on me. I, however, know that this is just Lee blowing off steam in his usual way, and a playful roll of my eyes is enough to assure my older friend that all is well between us.

“Fair enough,” Stuart shrugs. “Kinda disappointed that it ended though, my mate Mikey was looking at designing a robot for the next series, heh.”

“Does he have much experience with robots?” Lee asks.

“No, he just gets overly enthusiastic about anything new that crosses his path,” Stuart replies as he loads his daughter into her car seat and Lee and I slide onto the back seat of his car. “That plus he drives a van, which is all you really need, isn’t it?”

“I’ll let you know if my dad ever lets me drive his,” Lee snorts.

“Passed your test, then?” Stuart asks, smirking as Lee nods and I sigh and shake my head. “You don’t really want to be driving a car in central London anyway, especially with the congestion charge and the amount of insurance you two’d have to pay anyway.”

“Yeah, that’s one of my favourite Top Gear episodes too,” Lee chuckles. “Proper Top Gear, like.”

“It’d still be nice though,” I shrug. “Even if Lee is too much of a wuss to drive his crappy Corsa all the way from Cardiff to London.”

“Oh, pi- piddle off,” Lee says, trying not to blush as Stuart glares angrily while his daughter giggles.

“You’ve probably saved on petrol and parking costs anyway,” Stuart replies.

“And repair costs, probably,” I tease, laughing as Lee gives me an elbow in my ribs. Even though we’re talking about trivial nonsense, I already feel happier and more relaxed. Or maybe it’s because we’re talking about trivial nonsense, I don’t know. When I used to hang out with Abbey-Gayle and her gang, the ‘trivial nonsense’ would include fashion, make-up, celebrities and (more than everything else put together) boys. It should go without saying that cars and robots are much more interesting topics of conversation! And while I realise that girls can talk about cars and robots just as much as boys can- Chloe is living proof of that- everything about being able to relax with guys, as a guy, is blissful to me.

A short while later, we arrive back at Stuart’s large, fancy home, where his wife is on hand to greet us with a hug each before taking charge of the little girl who is obviously delighted to see her mother. I sometimes wonder if I was ever as happy to see my own mother as Olivia is to see hers…

“Hey, cutie!” Jamie coos to Olivia as Lee and I drop our overnight bags in the hall. “Did you have fun with your daddy and his friends?”

“Think she’d have had more fun where you were this morning,” Stuart chuckles, before smiling at mine and Lee’s confused faces. “Wednesday morning is the traditional get-together for the girls at their B-A-L-L-E-T class. And I have to spell it out because if this little one hears that word said out loud, she kinda gets excited, heh!”

“Six and a bit months and she’ll be old enough for her auntie Krystie’s toddler class,” Jamie says, giving her giggling daughter another gentle kiss. “I would say ‘assuming that’s what she wants’ but it’s a pretty safe assumption, heh!”

“She has more dress-up costumes than her mother,” Stuart teases. “And believe me, that’s saying something!”

“Speaking of which, there are no official costumes tonight,” Jamie informs us. “But I hope you brought something smart to wear in those bags? By which I DON’T mean your Robot Wars hoodies!”

“No, no, we brought actual, uncomfortable clothes,” Lee says with a smirk as Jamie sighs and rolls her eyes.

“BOYS,” Jamie teases. “Right, Olivia?” The four of us all chuckle as Olivia yelps happily, though I can’t help but fidget uncomfortably at the prospect of tonight.

When I told Stuart that Lee and I would be coming to London today to look for flats, he immediately told his best friend (the man he told us about in the car who drove a van), who immediately told his fiancée, who just happens to be Miss Fullerton, my former dance teacher, who is also an Angel, and whose 26th birthday just so happens to be today. Lee and I immediately got invited to the party, and naturally, I nearly had a panic attack on the spot.

Lee was up for the party, of course (even if it meant running into his ex), but all I could see in my mind was the worst case scenario. I go to the party, I’m photographed there, mum harasses me for the next three years, and I end up in a mental hospital or worse. The frustrating thing is, I do want to be friends with Jamie, with Krystie (aka Miss Fullerton) and co. They’re genuinely nice, friendly people, I enjoy spending time with them and any party hosted by them is both extremely fun and a guaranteed safe space. But I also know that if I enjoy it and mum finds out, she’ll take that as validation for all the stress and abuse she inflicted on me for the first sixteen years of my life. And it will never, ever stop.

“So which flats are you looking at today?” Jamie asks, bringing my thoughts back to the here and now.

“A couple in Highbury,” I reply, smirking as both of my friends roll their eyes. "Got to be somewhere close to, well, a cultural centre, right?"

"In Highbury?" Jamie asks.

"He's talking about Arsenal's stadium," Stuart sighs. "Should've guessed, really. You're welcome to say BOYS if you want."

"No, pointless wasting one of them on a football discussion," Jamie replies. "Unless either of you make any bets." The tone of Jamie's voice makes it very clear that neither of us will be making any bets any time soon.

"We're also looking at Highbury as our local MP would be Jeremy Corbyn," I say. "Looking forward to my grandmother's reaction to THAT, heh."

"Well- that's slightly better," Jamie chuckles.

“Sadly it’s gonna be one bedroom only," Lee says with a smug grin. "So Ian’s gonna be sleeping on the sofa most nights for- well, yeah.”

“Keep dreaming,” I snort.

“Ugh, you deserve it now,” Jamie sighs. "BOYS."

“Too right,” I retort, making my host giggle.

“Have fun, okay?” Jamie says. “We’ll see you back here at what, five?”

“Should be done by then, yep,” Lee says. “See you in a bit, then!”

“See you guys!” Jamie says as we three men head back to Stuart’s car.

“Thanks for ferrying us around today,” I say as I slide onto the front seat of the car (which Olivia is obviously no longer occupying). “Do you want any money for petrol?”

“Nah, I don’t need any money from you guys,” Stuart replies. “I earn bucket loads each year and you’re students so it kinda doesn’t seem fair.”

“Enough ‘bucket loads’ that you’re off work on a Wednesday morning?” Lee asks.

“The joys of working from home with extremely loose deadlines,” Stuart replies. “Sometimes I need to go into the office, like when Joshua rents out the recording studio, he has a tendency to rent me out with it, but I do kinda get to make my own hours. I’d recommend you find a job where you can do the same, Ian, ‘cause it really helps if you plan on working while recovering from SRS.”

“Yeah…” I say with a grimace. “I kinda think Lee’s gonna puke all over your car if we keep talking about that.”

“Just had six months of that with my ex, don’t need it with my flat mate either,” my friend says. “No offence to either of you.”

“None taken,” Stuart replies. “I guess it’s not the kind of thing guys talk about, I mean, Jamie talked about it at length with Nikki, and also with Kelly, Paige, Jacinta… When Kurt went in for his mastectomy it was basically a ten minute chat and a get well soon card, heh.” My interest is piqued at the mention of Kurt’s name- he’s also transgendered, like myself and Stuart, and is a little further along his transition than me (though not as far as Stuart). He’s also currently dating an Angel, which raises a possibility…

“Will Kurt be at the party tonight?” I ask.

“Yeah, it’s not optional if you’re an Angel’s significant other, heh,” Stuart replies. “Not that I mind, of course, the parties are good fun as you two already know and it’s good to actually have some male company there. Don’t tell Jamie that.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say with a chuckle as we head toward our first destination of the day.

We spend most of the afternoon looking around three different one bedroom flats, all of which are small, cramped and would likely be unpleasant to live in for an extended period, but all of which seem like palaces to two eighteen year old boys living away from home for the first time (I will always consider Cardiff to be more my ‘real’ home than London). Of course, arriving back at Stuart & Jamie’s house makes them seem as puny as we know they are, but it doesn’t dampen our excitement to start university in September- or our enthusiasm for tonight’s party!

After a quick dinner (and dropping Olivia off at Jamie’s parents’ house), we pull up outside the even fancier home of Charlotte Hartley and her family and are quickly ushered into the already-bustling party to while away the evening drinking, dancing and having fun. And we do genuinely have a lot of fun- even Lee, despite him avoiding his ex-girlfriend all night. So much fun, in fact, that I’m able to forget about my stresses for one night and am able to relax, not caring about work, or uni, or family- or the numerous photos that are being taken, many of which I’ll inevitably be in…

I let out a loud groan as the sound of loud voices downstairs rouses me from my slumber. I didn’t drink a lot last night, but enough to make my head sting this morning- though as the voices come into focus, I realise it’s not just the booze that’s making me feel unwell.

“…Kayleigh-Ann,” a familiar Welsh voice says that sends a chill down my spine. I take several deep breaths and focus as hard as I can, trying to wake myself from this dream, but I’m quickly forced to conclude that this is no dream, that even here in Stuart’s house, somewhere I assumed to be the safest space imaginable, I can’t hide from my past…

My deep breaths to calm myself quickly become shallower as I start to hyperventilate, and when a knock comes from the bedroom door I nearly wet myself. The fact that it’s Lee’s head that pokes around the door does nothing to calm me down, and the uncharacteristic look of worry on his face definitely doesn’t.

“Mate,” Lee whispers. “You should come downstairs.”

“No,” I reply, hastily shaking my head.

“You can’t just leave Stuart to deal with this,” Lee says. “He’s got your back and so have I, but you need to face her yourself.” I take a deep breath and blink back tears as my friend speaks, but I’m forced to conclude that he is right- she is undoubtedly here to see me.

“How- how did she even find this address?” I sigh as I sit up and pull on my jeans and my t-shirt. “Jamie doesn’t exactly publicise her address…”

“Dunno,” Lee shrugs. “Think Jamie’s asking that herself. And I thought things were going better between you and your mum?”

“Haven't talked to her in seven months,” I reply. “On purpose, like, after Christmas and- ugh."

"Yeah, I remember you saying," Lee says. "But I thought that was more your dad and your grandmother?"

"Yeah, but mum hasn't stopped since," I sigh. "Every time I think she makes progress, she falls straight back into old habits straight afterwards. That's why I tried to avoid coming to London, she was kinda, you know, 'out of sight, out of mind', but- I dunno, it’s just- ever since I knew I was moving to London, I was getting more and more stressed. I thought I was being paranoid, but now I know that I’m going to have to look over my shoulder every second I’m at uni.”

“Maybe you are being paranoid,” Lee shrugs.

“Not met my mother, have you?” I retort.

“Never had the ‘pleasure’,” Lee says.

“Then come and see,” I whisper, taking a deep breath and walking downstairs, momentarily freezing when my eyes meet my mother’s.

“Kay-“ mum says, before pausing and taking a deep breath. Even though Stuart and Jamie have their backs to me, I can tell that the looks on their faces are VERY disapproving of my mother’s near-use of my dead name. “He- hello, Ian.”

“Hello… Angela,” I reply. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see my d- so- child,” mum replies, trying not to bristle at my use of her first name. “Is that such a crime?”

“How did you even find out I was here?” I ask.

“Good question,” Jamie says with a distinct snarl to her voice.

“I- I asked your grandmother,” mum says, a look of shame spreading across her face. “I told her your father was ill, she gave me the address to pick you up to- umm, take you to the hospital…”

“…I wouldn’t have gone with you even if that was true, grandma knows that,” I spit, taking several deep breaths to calm myself. This is NOT a nightmare. I do NOT have to give in to my fear. I am NOT going to let this woman bully me or emotionally blackmail me the way she did throughout my childhood. And my name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann, and I am NOT a girl. “And I- I want you to leave.”

“…You always were selfish, Kayleigh-Ann,” mum spits. “I come here to see how you are and all you can think about is yourself.”

“You came here to meet Jamie,” I retort. “And- and my name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann."

"Oh yes it is," mum snorts. "The only reason you're PRETENDING to be a boy is to spite me, because you can't accept that I know what's best for you!"

"My. Name. Is. Not. Kayleigh-Ann!" I growl, my hands clenching into fists.

“Much like mine isn’t ‘James’,” Jamie says, stepping forward. “I REALLY want you to leave my house. Now.”

“Not without-“ mum begins, before taking a deep breath, raising her hand to her head and letting out a low moan.

“We’re not falling for that,” I say hastily as I feel my legs start to tremble. “And I don’t want you to contact me again, especially not after I move here in September for uni.” I try not to frown as this piece of information causes mum to almost immediately snap out of her ‘funk’.

“You- you’re moving to London?” Mum asks, her stare boring into my skull. “So you’ll be closer to your friends?” Naturally, this idea makes my mother VERY interested- and seems to have completely cured her ‘depression’ as well.

“Not- not my friends in Cardiff,” I mumble. “Or my girlfriend, either. I- I’m going to be studying, umm, graphic design…”

“Good,” mum says, triggering an awkward silence in the room. “Kay- umm, Ian- Ian… I want us to be closer, to have a better relationship. I’m not the person I used to be.”

“Yeah, I could tell when you accused me of being selfish and when you pretended to be about to faint,” I retort, trying not to smirk as Stuart and Jamie nod in agreement.

“And don’t forget we both saw what happened last year after the football match,” Stuart says, gesturing to himself and his wife. “And we both think it’d be best if you did leave now.”

“More importantly, so does your SON,” Jamie says firmly, using the same tone of voice for ‘SON’ as she does whenever she says ‘BOY’ to me or Stuart- though this time, it is certainly intended as a compliment.

“I-“ mum snaps, before taking a deep breath to calm herself. “I am entitled to see my child if I so wish.”

“Except I’m not a child anymore,” I say, my voice hoarse from the stress of the situation. “I’m an adult. I’m a MAN. I’m my own man, and I’m going to decide what I do with my life, who I do it with, and why I do it. I’m going to decide that- not you, not ‘dad’ not anyone else. And I’ve decided I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“…Very well,” mum whispers in an emotional voice, before turning and leaving the house. Immediately after Stuart shuts the door behind her, I feel my legs turn to jelly and if it isn’t for Lee’s quick reflexes, I would’ve ended up plummeting down the last few stairs.

“Easy, easy now,” Lee says as he and Stuart put their arms around my shoulders and all but carry me to the sofa in the living room.

“I’m sorry,” I sob, feeling utterly helpless and pathetic as my friends make sure I’m comfortable. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorr-“

“Don’t apologise,” Jamie sighs, sitting down next to me and gripping my hands to keep them from shaking. “I know just how stressful that must have been for you. Believe me, I do- I was estranged from my parents for years, including the first few months of my transition. But we eventually worked it out in the end.”

“But I don’t WANT to work it out,” before sighing and grimacing as tears start to flow from my eyes. “But maybe I do, I don’t know…”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Jamie whispers. “If you need to cry, you cry. I’ll make sure the BOYS keep their traps shut, right?”

“Cross my heart,” Stuart says, Lee nodding in agreement.

“Take all the time you need,” Jamie says softly. “Neither of us are working today, whatever you need, just say it.”

“No- no, really,” I moan. “Don’t, just on my account…”

“Yes, especially on your account,” Jamie insists. “You’ve got that tattoo, as far as I’m concerned, you’re family, even if you do live 150 miles away.”

“Which I really hope won’t be the case come September,” Stuart says. “And besides, I still feel guilty about last August, when I dropped you at the station and didn’t, you know, stick around to make sure you were okay. Not making that mistake again.”

“Oh- you of all people have nothing to be guilty about,” I mumble between shaky breaths.

“I hope you realise soon that neither do you,” Jamie says.

“Definitely,” Lee says in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. “When you talked about your family in the past I always wondered if, you know, you were exaggerating… You really weren’t. And I’m sorry if I ever thought you were, you know, milking it.”

“Because whatever you might think, you’re not doing that now,” Jamie insists. “It’s okay to be stressed, and it’s okay to need help. Speaking of which, I’m just going to make a phone call, okay? Do- do you need anything?”

“…Kinda need the toilet,” I shrug, smirking as my friends chuckle at my response.

“You know where the downstairs is, mate,” Stuart says, helping me up and directing me to the small room.

After sitting down on the toilet (and trying not to think about how that’s still a necessity), I take several deep breaths, but try as I might, I can’t stop the tears from flowing from my eyes. Not just tears of frustration or anger at my mother’s behaviour, or even at grandma for leading her into my ‘safe space’, but tears at the unconditional love and support my friends have showed me.

Growing up, it was always drilled into me that I should only make friends with the people who would help me ‘get ahead’. The sole reason mum introduced me to Abbey-Gayle and encouraged, or rather, forced me to make friends with her was because she was signed to Heavenly Talent and she thought it’d help ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ get ahead with ‘her’ modelling ‘career’. I never felt comfortable hanging out with the girls, not even with Ella, who I was closer to than any of the other girls. And yet, the ironic thing is that as ‘Ian’, I can genuinely count many of the Angels as genuine friends, not because I want anything from them, or they want anything from me, but because we genuinely like each other.

Of course, there is a specific reason why I’d be friends with Jamie and Stuart, and if I’d been born male, there’s likely no way I’d have ended up making friends with them. However, I almost certainly would’ve made friends with Lee, Neil and Rob, and the same would be true of my relationship with Chloe too. Mum, however, would be just as monstrous, insisting that I either take endless singing lessons to be a member of the next One Direction or playing football all day in order to be the next David Beckham. I sometimes wonder whether I’d have been tempted by feminine things if I’d been born male, but I quickly put thoughts like that out of my mind- there’s no sense in dwelling on what might have been, especially when what is is causing me so much stress.

Though that being said, the confrontation with my ‘mother’ wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined- especially considering it was literally a nightmare that came true. And this is all because of my friends- my TRUE friends that stood by me, not because they stood to gain from doing so, but because that’s what true friends do. However, I can’t rely on my friends to be there 24/7 for the next three years- and there’s nothing stopping mum from coming back later. Or worse yet, coming back with reinforcements…

“You okay in there?” Stuart says, knocking on the door of the toilet and derailing my train of thought. “Need a bit longer? …Ian?”

“I’m okay,” I reply. “I- umm, just need to, you know, clean up…”

“Ugh, yeah, I should know better than anyone,” Stuart snorts. “Take all the time you need, okay? Jamie’s called someone over but she won’t be here for about half an hour.”

“Who- who’s she called?” I ask, my panic response immediately triggering again.

“It’s someone who can help, don’t worry,” Stuart says reassuringly. “She’s someone who’s helped me and Jamie a lot. We’ve got some coffee and some toast on the go when you’re ready, figured you’d want some breakfast after- well, after that.”

“Definitely,” I reply, a defiant thought crossing my mind. “Do- do you have any bacon?”

“Think we’ve got some in the fridge,” Stuart replies. “Jamie’s not much of a ‘red meat for breakfast’ kinda person, she’s got to maintain her figure, that sort of thing.”

“Mum said the same thing to me growing up,” I retort. “Hence why I was kept on a strict vegan diet from the age of six.”

“Bacon sarnies it is, then,” Stuart immediately replies. “Been looking for an excuse to have one for ages, heh!”

“You’re welcome,” I reply with a sarcastic snort of laughter as I clean myself up, flush the toilet and head through to the kitchen, where I’m greeted by Jamie, Lee and Olivia (who is, of course, oblivious to what’s been going on).

“Hey,” Jamie says softly. “How are you feeling?”

“Not great,” I sigh. “And I’m sorry again that she found your home address, I’ll have to talk to grandma about that.”

“Yeah, we might have to talk to a judge to see if we can’t get a restraining order,” Stuart snorts. “Figured that we’d have to eventually due to Jamie’s job, didn’t figure that the first one would be for a 45 year old Welsh woman.”

“Yeah…” I grimace. “Who- umm, who’s this- this friend you’ve called?”

“You’ll like her,” Jamie replies.

A short while later, a knock comes from the front door, and a distinguished looking middle-aged woman enters the house, taking a seat next to me on the sofa and introducing herself to me with a formal handshake.

“Hello, you must be Ian,” the older woman says with a warm smile. “My name’s Dr Beverly Phillips, I’m a counsellor specialising in gender identity issues. Jamie and Stuart have told me that you’ve had a stressful morning, is this right?”

“Just a bit, yeah,” I reply, smiling involuntarily as the counsellor lets out a gentle chuckle. “No offence, but I- I kinda have a counsellor in Cardiff.”

“Jamie and Stuart also tell me that you’ll be moving to London soon,” Dr Phillips retorts. “If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s okay, I’m not going to put any pressure on you. But I heard about what happened, and I'm to lend a professional ear, and a sympathetic one, if you want."

"O- okay," I say, taking a deep breath as Stuart, Jamie and Lee retreat to the kitchen to give us some privacy.

Even though I've never met this woman before, I know I can trust her- she isn't just a friend and former counsellor to Jamie and Stuart, but is also the mother of my friend Sarah (who has quickly become friends with Chloe, thanks to their shared interest in fashion design) and as such, the mother-in-law of my friend Nikki, who bears the same tattoo as myself, Stuart and Jamie. A family not linked by blood (well, with the obvious exception of Beverly and Sarah) but who are far closer than my own 'family'.

"My whole life," I begin, "I've felt less like a child and more like my mother's 'project'..."

Dr Phillips sticks around for another 45 minutes, listening intently and offering advice as I explain the situation not just with my mother, but the rest of my family, Chloe, my repeated ‘brushes with fame’ and, of course, my transition. By the end of the discussion, I do genuinely feel less stressed out about my whole situation, especially when Dr Phillips gives me her email address and advises me to email her any time I’m feeling stressed (as she’s a private counsellor, regular sessions will be a bit beyond my student’s budget). I take her parting advice to heart- that I don’t ever need to feel alone, advice that Jamie naturally backs up with her now famous catchphrase of ‘you can never have too many friends’.

However, that doesn’t make what I have to do next any easier…

“Hello?” Grandma says as she answers the phone, causing my body to tremble as I take a deep breath to steady my nerves.

“Hi grandma, it’s Ian,” I say.

“Oh, thank god!” Grandma says. “Are you at the hospital now?”

“Nope,” I reply, gripping my phone harder than I probably should. “…And neither are mum and dad.”

“What do you mean?” Grandma asks. “When your mother called, she said your father was seriously ill.”

“Well, she- she, umm…” I stammer, before taking another deep breath and meeting the supportive gazes of my friends. “She lied. She wanted to know where I was staying so she could confront me about going to the celebrity party last night. Just as she’s done all the time over the last two years.” This information causes grandma to pause, and I feel my palms start to sweat and my heart race as I deliver this information. Grandma is more reasonable than mum, that goes without saying, but she’s still stern, doesn’t react to bad news well and isn’t above inflicting a guilt trip on someone even if they are only the messenger.

“You are NOT responsible for this,” Jamie whispers.

“…I see,” grandma says. “Thank you for calling, Ian. What time do you expect to be home today?”

“Umm… Late evening, probably… Maybe?” I reply. “Going to, umm, stick around, show Lee a bit more of London, that sort of thing.”

“Okay,” grandma says. “I’ve got to go now, Ian, I need to make a phone call. I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah- okay, see you later,” I say, letting out a long sigh of relief as I end the call and lean back onto the sofa.

“Mate, that could NOT have been easy,” Lee says.

“Meh, it’s done now,” I sigh.

“You can’t choose your family,” Stuart chuckles. “God knows Olivia will probably never know her great-grandmother thanks to her attitudes.”

“True,” I sigh. “But I can choose my friends. And I like to think I’ve got pretty good taste. Even if I do pride ‘quality’ over ‘quantity’, heh.”

“Oh- you BOY,” Jamie says with a giggle. “Though I agree ‘quality’ is the most important thing too. Speaking of, me, Krystie and the rest of the girls will all be meeting up for lunch, kinda like a ‘post birthday’ celebration for her. You’re welcome to come along, but as there’ll be cameras there, we’ll understand if you give it a miss.”

“Would prefer to skip that, thanks,” I say, smiling as Jamie nods understandingly.

“Alternatively, a lot of the boys are coming over here for a Mario Kart session,” Stuart offers. “And you’re welcome to stay for that if you want.” I smile as I exchange a glance with Lee, who nods in agreement, seemingly knowing exactly what I’m thinking.

“BOYS,” Lee and I say simultaneously, making Jamie giggle and shake her head.

Several of Stuart’s friends arrive a little while later, and as promised, we while away most of the rest of the day on the sofa playing videogames, before heading out into Stuart’s modest garden for a quick lunch of takeaway pizza. Stuart’s friends (those who don’t have to work today anyway) are all friendly, as always, and just as happy to treat me as ‘one of the guys’ as they are Stuart or Kurt.

Eventually, the time comes for myself and Lee to take our leave and head back to Paddington station, and I try to make sense of the last 24 hours as I pack my overnight bag. The next three years are going to be fun, but also extremely stressful if today is anything to go by.

Mum will NEVER get the message that I have to live my life the way I want. Every time I think we've made progress, like at Christmas, she just slips right back into her old attitudes. Maybe she really is depressed, I don't know. All I know is that every day I'm in London, I have to be prepared for a confrontation with her- especially if I continue to hang out with the rest of the 'fellowship'.

Of course, there's nothing stopping me from making other friends at uni, which I thoroughly intend to do, but the damned thing about it is that I like hanging out with Stuart and his friends. Stuart is a great mentor, as is Kurt from the few chats I've had with him. Both are eager to help me with my transition, willing and able to answer any questions I have and happy to see me as 'one of the guys', just as Lee and his friends were in Cardiff. The fact that they're both either married to or in long-term relationships with famous models just adds a different dimension to the relationship- namely that I'll always at least slightly resent it for the effect it has on my mother.

...Which, as I discover when I get ready to leave, is even greater than I'd dreaded. Just as I'm clamping my trusty new Arsenal cap to my head (and enduring the inevitable mocking from Chelsea-loving Stuart), I spot a familiar car pull up outside and my mum gets out, heading straight for the front door.

"Oh for god's sake," Stuart sighs, not bothering to disguise his exasperation. "She didn't get enough of a hint last time?"

"What's up?" Mikey- Stuart's best friend- asks.

"It's my mum," I sigh, biting my quivering bottom lip to try to keep my emotions in check.

"...Ah," Mikey replies, clearly aware of the significance of this beyond my brief recap of this morning.

"Should- should we call the police?" Lee asks as a knock comes from the front door.

"...No, I'll deal with this," Stuart says, taking a deep breath before opening the door. "Last time you were here, Mrs. Walker, you were asked to leave. That hasn't changed. Please go away before I call the police." Mum opens her mouth as if to respond to Stuart, but no words come out- instead, she simply breaks down in a flood of tears. While many of the other guys immediately rush to comfort her, I stand back, my arms folded over my chest and hoping that I'm displaying an emotionless look. Though even I have to admit that this time, mum's tears look real...

"I- I'm sorry," mum says, instantly disarming me. She's been known to say anything to get what she wants, but an apology, an admission of guilt? This IS new, especially as it actually sounds genuine.

"O-kay..." Stuart says, clearly as surprised as I am.

"I really, really am sorry," mum says. "Not- not just to you but to- to Ian as well. To my son." Naturally, this makes my jaw drop. She's used my male name before, but grudgingly, and she's never acknowledged me as her son. Stuart looks to me expectantly, and after a hesitant nod, leads mum into the living room, where she sits down, takes a deep breath to calm herself and starts to explain her change of heart.

"Your grandmother called me when I got home," mum explains. "Told me that you'd called her, told her what I'd done, and I- I felt I needed to come and see you, Ka- umm, Ian."

"Just a coincidence that you felt this 'need' the night after I went to a celebrity party, was it?" I sneer, instantly cringing as I feel several pairs of angry eyes stare straight at me.

"No, no it wasn't," mum confesses. "I- Ian, all I ever wanted was for you to grow up to be rich, healthy and happy... But I now realise- I- I acknowledge that I didn't go about this the right way. I- I tried to make you into what I wanted to be- what I wanted to be when I was younger. I never asked if it was what you wanted and I- I'm sorry, I am SO sorry." Needless to say, mum's apology leaves me speechless, especially compared to how she was just a few hours ago. Grandma can be stern, and mum's always been slightly scared of her. But even that doesn't account for this dramatic a change.

"What-" I begin, choosing my words carefully as I'm conscious of the judgemental stares of my friends. "What, umm, what's brought this- brought this on?"

"...Your father and I filed for divorce in April," mum explains. "After what happened at Christmas, I knew the marriage was over. And going home to the empty house made me realise that my choices, they- they could've been better. Not just with him, but how I've treated you as well. I pushed you too hard, I never listened to you and I tried to justify it by thinking that I knew best, and it- well, grandma told me about, umm, about your, well, wrists..." I bite my lip at this- the last thing I need is for all of my new friends to know about a history of self-harm...

"Yeah..." I mumble.

"I now realise that if I hadn't done this, you wouldn't be so stressed out just being in the same room as me," mum says. "You don't know how much that hurts me as a mother. But- but, umm, you shouldn't feel guilty about that. It's me that's done this, pushed you away... If I hadn't pushed too hard, you wouldn't be so stressed out, and would probably be just as successful as you are now. I mean, I never went to university, for starters. If I hadn't pushed you, you'd probably still be a girl too..." Needless to say, this comment erodes a lot of the sympathy mum had built up since her return.

"Wouldn't bet on that," Kurt says in his soft Canadian accent.

"I- I'm sorry, have we met?" Mum asks.

"Kurt Vance," my Canadian friend introduces himself. "Born 25 and a bit years ago as Kathryn Vance but now every- well, pretty much every bit male. The important bits are male, anyway."

"I- I'm not saying that Ian's transitioning to spite me," mum says. "I now realise I was dead wrong to say that, but if I hadn't been, you know so pushy, maybe I wouldn't have caused, you know, the 'stress'..."

"Despite what some people would have you believe," Stuart says, "transsexualism is not, I repeat, NOT a mental illness. Your son was destined to be a man from the day he was born, and would've been regardless of who raised him, or how he was raised. Maybe he'd have arrived at the 'destination' a different way, but he'd have got there nonetheless."

"I- I'm sorry," mum mumbles. "But- but I just see Ian and all I can see is, well, 'Kayleigh-Ann'."

"My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann," I say firmly. "And I am NOT a girl."

"It wasn't easy for my parents either, not at first," Stuart says. "Or for Kurt's, or Jamie's, or any of our transgendered friends."

"But if you need 'proof'," I whisper, "I- I can do something that can, well, show you..."

Several days later, I wake up in a Cardiff hospital bed to be greeted by the concerned faces of my mother, grandmother and girlfriend. I have a lot of pain in my chest, but pain that's welcome because of what it signifies- that the breasts that I've been taping down for the last three years are no longer a part of me. They have been removed, excised, discarded. Now I no longer need to worry about being 'found out', even when stripped down to just my underpants. I still have that to worry about, of course, and the scars on my chest will remain for a long time, but I have taken a large, important step to becoming a man.

Though as strange as it sounds, the reconciliation with my mother feels like a much larger step. She's even said that she'll move back to Cardiff to live with grandma when I start university, to try to keep her 'urges' regarding me in check, and to make sure that I can hang out with who I want without any fear of her overreacting or stressing me out unnecessarily. For the first time since I moved to Cardiff and became Ian on a permanent basis, I feel like I've taken a major step toward who and what I want to be. Of course, dad and Grandma Walker will never be on my side, but the last time we were in the same room I damn near knocked him out, and I'm sure he won't be eager for round 2 any time soon. I can relax, recover from my surgery and look forward to university with a blank slate, ready for anything and everything life throws at me.

"Hi, glad to see you're awake!" My surgeon says as he pops in to check on me. "Still feeling sore?"

"Yeah, a bit," I reply. "Okay, more than a bit, heh."

"The soreness and the swelling WILL go away," the surgeon assures me. "This time next year you'll be able to sunbathe with your shirt off and no one will be able to tell a thing. Assuming, of course, you aren't playing with robots in a shed somewhere!"

"I- I'm sorry?" I say.

"You were on the latest series of Robot Wars, weren't you?" The surgeon asks. "I have a 15 year old son who loves that show, he'd be thrilled if he learned I was the one handling your surgery!"

"Y- yeah," I say, laughing nervously as the all too familiar feeling of stress creeps back up on me. Maybe I'm not ready for EVERYTHING life throws at me...

“Okay, then,” I say to myself, before taking a deep breath and walking through the front door of the large, imposing building. For the first time in two years, I’m entering a place of education that’s based in London- only unlike that last time, I’m doing so on my own terms.

It’s odd that my thoughts are brought back to my last day of school, rather than my first day of college, especially as there are a lot of similarities between my first days of college and uni. For starters, I’ve only been in my new home a few weeks, I’m living away from what had been my home for several months beforehand- and by ‘home’, I don’t just mean house, but city and technically country as well- and, most importantly, I’m going in alone, not knowing whether or not I’ll make any friends, especially when they learn that for the first sixteen years of my life, my name wasn’t Ian and I wasn’t a boy. Well, not legally, anyway.

Not for the first time, that change is foremost in my mind as I register at the front desk, grimacing just as I did two years ago when the receptionist takes my ID and frowns in confusion at the ‘F’ next to the gender field on it. Even though I’ve been transitioning for two years, which is long enough to qualify for my gender recognition certificate, my application is still being processed, meaning that in the eyes of the law, I am still legally ‘Ian the girl’. Thankfully, just as happened two years ago, the receptionist seems to recognise the situation and amends the system so the gender on my student ID says ‘M’, but it’s still a source of frustration. However, as I’m reminded when I idly scratch my chest, it’s no longer a source of stress.

And in a way, I suppose that’s why I’m reminded so much of my last day of school. On that date, I went into school wearing a blouse, a skirt, some make-up and had smooth, hairless legs. And no one looked at me twice. After all, what’s weird about a girl looking like that?

Okay, on that occasion, they did give me a second look, but only because my formerly long blonde hair had been cropped short- though not as short as it is today.

In addition to my hair being shorter than even most of the other guys in the uni, I have a fine layer of stubble on my face, am wearing a fairly clingy long-sleeved t-shirt, a pair of old, dark blue jeans and a pair of rugged brown ankle boots. And other than the fact that at 5’ 7” (not counting the thick sole of the walking boots), I’m shorter than other guys, no one is giving me a second look. Well, other than the girls in the university who clearly like what they see!

The clothes I’m wearing today aren’t that much different than what I wore on my first day of college, of course, but back then, there was one exception- underneath my shirt, I wore a special vest that gave the illusion that I had a flat chest. Today, the flatness is no illusion. Nor are the muscles on my arms, thanks to years of training at my friend’s father’s boxing gym. In fact, if I were to be stripping to my jockey shorts, the only clue that I was anything other than male would be the fading pink scars halfway up my ribcage. Of course, if I were to take off my jockey shorts, the game would be up, but that’s a problem for another time entirely.

And, of course, the biggest reason my stress levels are so (relatively) low is because the biggest source of my stress is no longer present. After the confrontation at the start of summer, my mother, as promised, moved back to Cardiff, where thanks to grandma’s constant presence, she stayed out of my life, holding back all criticism of my lifestyle and my choices. By the middle of September, she’d become almost tolerable to live with, which made it even harder when the time came for me to move back to London for uni. It was of course much harder to leave Chloe than it was mum or even grandma, though we have at least promised to keep in touch on Skype at least twice per week.

Of course, my father and his witch of a mother still live in London, though after the left hook I gave him at Christmas, I doubt he’ll be in any hurry to confront me again! All I have to worry about is studying hard over the next three years, keeping my new student flat in order and not wasting all of my student loan on beer and videogames. And believe me, compared to the first 16 and a half years of my life, this will be a doddle.

My tension lessens over the course of the morning as I sign up for the student union and check out the various societies in the university. My friends Sarah and Jacinta were on the committee of their college’s LGBT society, and as their college is part of the same university as mine, I figured the least I could do is show my support to the society as well. Needless to say, I also sign up for the college’s gaming society!

As I head to lunch, my mind once again drifts back to my first day at college and my final day of school. On my final day of school, I hung out (as always) with Maisie and the rest of the cheerleading squad, girls with whom I felt very little connection beyond the fact we studied the same subjects at the same school- and, as much as I hated it, wore the same uniform. On my first day of college, thanks in part to wearing my old Arsenal cap, I immediately made friends with three guys with whom I grew closer in one day than I did with Maisie, or for that matter, Abbey-Gayle, Brooke or Georgie, throughout the previous two years. The fact that I now live with one of those guys is proof enough of that. As I head into the university’s cramped cafeteria, even though I’m not wearing my cap, I can’t help but wonder how many friends I’ll make today. After all, as my friend Jamie (whose birthday party Lee and I were privileged to attend last week) always says, you can never have too many friends.

As it transpires, I don’t speak to anyone at lunch beyond the odd ‘hi’ as I sit down to eat- everyone is obviously also nervous on their first day- but when I head into my first seminar, I find myself immediately drawn toward two guys who are sat by themselves in the corner of the room, at a table I'd immediately have headed to had it been unoccupied. The fact that the taller of the two guys is wearing a t-shirt with Iron Man's helmet on it helps to put me at ease. As I approach, I am obviously a little apprehensive about introducing myself to the two guys. Obviously, they’ll inevitably find out about my ‘status’, and when they do, there’s no guarantee they’d want to have anything at all to do with me, but then again, if they get to know me first, like Rob, Neil and Lee did, then it’ll be easier to overlook any awkwardness my ‘status’ may cause. And in addition to Jamie’s most famous advice, another saying she's fond of is 'you only regret the things you don't do'.

“Hey,” I say cautiously as I approach the table. “Is- is anyone sitting here?”

“No, help yourself,” one of the two, a skinny guy with golden blond hair, replies. “I’m Mac, by the way, this is Ben.”

“Ian,” I reply as I shake the two guys’ hands. “Ian Freeman, nice to meet you.”

“I’m guessing by the accent that you’re living away from home, then?” Ben- a shorter guy (the same height as me when sat down) with darker hair says with a grin. I forgot for a second that there were other characteristics about me other than the obvious one that might set me apart from everyone else, especially when compared to Mac and Ben’s very London accents.

“Umm… Yes and no, actually,” I reply. “I was born in Cardiff, moved to London when I was, like, 2 or 3, moved back to Cardiff when I was 16 to live with my grandmother.”

“So, are you here on your own, then?” Mac asks.

“Umm, sort-of,” I reply. “If you mean the university, then yes, if you mean London, then no, I’m living with a friend from Cardiff.” I bite my lip before proceeding- the temptation is to tell the two guys about our Robot Wars appearance, but I don’t want to come across as a showoff less than five minutes after meeting them. The same reason applies for not telling them about my friendship with Jamie- that and the more obvious reason…

“Where are you living?” Mac asks, making my decision for me whether to boast.

“Umm, Highbury,” I reply. “Near the Emirates stadium.”

“Poor you,” Ben says with a smug snort of laughter, making both myself and Mac roll our eyes.

“Spurs fan,” Mac explains with a heavy sigh.

“Poor you,” I snort as Ben’s grin grows wider. “Have you two known each other long?”

“Umm, about five minutes,” Ben replies with a chuckle. “I sat down, Mac showed up about 30 seconds later. Don’t even know what his actual first name is, ‘Mac’ is short for his surname, MacFarlane.”

“First name isn’t ‘Seth’ by any chance?” I ask, making both guys laugh- at the very least, we share a love of Seth MacFarlane cartoons.

“I wish,” Mac laughs. “What uni’s your flat mate going to, then?”

“UCL,” I reply, earning rightfully impressed looks from the two guys. “Studying robotic engineering, that sort of thing.”

“Nice,” Mac chuckles. “So he’s, like, proper brainy then?”

“Umm, when it comes to electrical and mechanical stuff, yeah,” I reply, before biting my lip as a look of recognition spreads across Ben’s face.

“Ah, THAT’s where I know you from!” My new friend says with a grin. “You were on the last series of Robot Wars, weren’t you? With that spinny robot with the weird name?”

“Chwilen, the Welsh word for beetle,” I reply as a smile creeps across my face- though try as I might, I can’t help but tense up as my new friends’ attention fully focusses on me.

All throughout the summer I attended meetings with my counsellor in Cardiff, and on many occasions, mum came along as well to help us through our (extremely large) number of issues, one of which was my stressing out any time I came into contact with anything even remotely fame-related. Thanks to these meetings, I’ve been able to take pride in my accomplishments (which include Robot Wars), and mum’s continued promises to keep off my back have made my life a lot more comfortable, and me a lot more confident. Though as hard as I try, occasions like this will probably always make me uncomfortable…

“Well- it’s still cool,” Ben says with a grin. “I know I’ve never been on TV.”

“Me either,” Mac says as I start to fidget uncomfortably in my seat, something not helped by Ben suddenly frowning, as though he’s remembered something- and it doesn’t take a robotics engineer to figure out what particular thing about Team Chwilen was out of the ordinary…

“Yeah…” I say, nervously scratching my head. “So, umm, are- are you an Arsenal fan then, Mac?”

“Umm, no, West Ham,” Mac says, clearly confused by my suddenly changing the topic of conversation. “Okay…”

“Yeah…” I grimace as I desperately think of something else to say.

“What- what was Dara O’Briain like?” Mac asks, making me fidget once again.

“Umm, he was okay, didn’t speak to him that much,” I reply. “Spent most of my time backstage, you know, doing repairs, that sort of thing. Look, umm, I’d rather not talk about this if you don’t mind, I- I kinda, umm.. Kinda had a fight with my girlfriend when we were recording it. We worked out it eventually though.”

“Ah, fair enough,” Mac says. “Is- is she still in Cardiff? Or at a different uni?”

“She’s only seventeen, so still in Cardiff,” I reply. “Hopefully going to LCF next year.”

“Ah, cool,” Mac chuckles. “Guess you’re looking forward to that, then?”

“Just a little,” I chuckle. “Especially as grandma won’t let us have any ‘sleepovers’ at her house and Chloe’s family kinda hate me.”

“What, just ‘cause you’re a year older?” Mac asks, making me fidget again- that is, of course, not the reason for Chloe’s family disapproving of her going out with me, and the look on Ben’s face tells me he might just have figured everything out…

Fortunately, before the conversation can get any more awkward, our tutor arrives and introduces himself, and we soon immerse ourselves in the learning material. The workload of the course definitely looks daunting, but it’s a challenge I’m eager to get stuck into, and it’s clear that my new friends are as well. The awkwardness that had briefly fallen over the table is soon replaced by enthusiasm about the next three years, and by the time our tutor dismisses us, spirits at the table are high once again.

“This… Isn’t gonna be easy!” Mac chuckles as we stuff our materials into our bags.

“Nah,” Ben agrees. “But no reason it can’t be fun, heh.”

“Too right,” I say with a half-exited, half-tired chuckle. “Are you two heading back home now? I was thinking of, you know, hitting the student union bar, getting a couple of drinks?”

“Ah… I’d love to, but I really am kinda expected back home,” Ben replies.

“Yeah, same here,” Mac sighs. “Maybe another day this week?”

“Umm, sure,” I say. “How about tomorrow?”

“Ah- yeah, Tuesday evenings aren’t usually good for me…” Mac replies, scratching his head awkwardly before shrugging. “Kinda- kinda got a family thing, that’s all.”

“Oh- umm, okay,” I say, wondering what Mac’s secret could be. Given that he’s over six feet tall, it’s unlikely to be the same ‘secret’ as me, but it’s obviously something that’s eating away at him, and I know better than to poke at what could be a very sensitive area for him.

“What ‘family thing’?” Ben, who’s obviously not afraid to touch a sensitive area, asks.

“Ehh… Guess you’ll find out sooner or later,” Mac says, embarrassingly scratching his head again. Surely he can’t be… I think to myself. “I- I kinda, umm… I kinda play Warhammer on Tuesday nights with my dad.” Is- is that it? I think to myself. Here I was, expecting some dark secret like being a member of Britain First or a Morris dancer (or maybe even a crossdresser, though obviously there’s nothing wrong with that), but his deep, dark secret is something I occasionally do- and love doing? “Yeah, I know,” Mac sighs. “Check out the nerd, right?” I open my mouth to reply, but before I do, I’m again interrupted by my other new friend.

“Umm, hardly,” Ben chuckles. “Seriously, I’ve never played Warhammer, and definitely wouldn’t ever play with my dad, but I love stuff like that.”

“Well, umm, okay!” Mac chuckles, clearly relieved to have one new friend who shares his hobby- though his nerves clearly return when he glances at me.

“…What?” I ask. “I HAVE played Warhammer. Liked it too, not as much as X-Wing as I usually only played in groups of 4 or 5.”

“…Seriously?” Mac asked, his face screwed up in confusion. “YOU’VE played Warhammer?”

“Played a game of 40k once too,” I reply with a proud, smug grin. “Is that REALLY so surprising?”

“Well- I just thought, you know…” Mac mumbles, making me tense up- here it comes, I’ve obviously been ‘sussed’ now… “With your designer t-shirt, your obvious muscles and your haircut, I just thought, you know, you were a male model or something, too cool to be a, umm, a geek…” As Mac speaks, even though I know it’s intended as a compliment, I can’t help but feel my tension levels rise as every word he says is a word that would make my mother increasingly proud…

“Yeah, well, I’d have thought that being on Robot Wars was a clue,” I retort, making my friends chuckle, which thankfully eases my stress a little.

“The fact that you have a girlfriend kinda isn’t,” Ben retorts, making me laugh. “As is the fact you wanted us to go to a bar. Are you sure you don’t have any, you know, model friends?” Okay, he DEFINITELY knows, I think to myself, before snapping myself out of my paranoia.

“Umm, no, not really,” I reply, internally grimacing- less than 8 hours after meeting my new friends, I’m not only lying to them, I’m also denying many of the good friends that I already have. Then again, considering the alternative is to say ‘yes, I’m good friends with the Angels, particularly Jamie-Lee Burke as I used to be a girl and anatomically still am from the ribcage downward’, a small white lie shouldn’t be too damaging for now. I hope not, anyway…

“Hmm, okay,” Ben says, clearly unconvinced by my explanation. “So, then, tomorrow night’s out… Wednesday’s our free day, want to meet up then?”

“We- we’ll make plans tomorrow,” I say. “Don’t want to hold you guys up any further and I kinda need to get home too, heh.”

“Okay,” Mac shrugs. “See you guys tomorrow, heh!”

“Yep, see you!” I say with a smile as I head out of the university and to the nearby tube station.

During the ride home, my thoughts are occupied partially by the demands of my course, but mostly by the two new friends I’ve made today. I knew- well, I’d hoped that I’d make new friends at university, if not on the first day then certainly within the first week. And Ben and Mac (or whatever his real name is) seem like nice enough people. Them having similar interests to me is certainly a coincidence, but a welcome one, though if they’d been into clothes and cars I’d have been equally happy to call them my friends- you can never have too many, after all. Even if that phrase makes me feel guilty about lying to my new friends about my older ones…

My fledgling friendship with Mac and Ben also reminds me of the first days of my friendship with Lee, Neil and Rob, with the main difference being that they were friends before meeting me (though they never made me feel like an outsider, even when they found out my ‘secret’), whilst with Mac and Ben, I have the chance to start a new friendship group from scratch. It’s not escaped my attention that if you count Abbey-Gayle and her gang, it’s my third such friendship group in as many years. Maybe I’m just a naturally likeable person, I dunno. Certainly having as many friends as I do makes it easier for me to like myself, especially as the faint scars on my wrist are a constant reminder that that hasn't always been the case.

Of course, there’s no guarantee my friendship with Ben and Mac will survive even one second beyond them finding out what letter is printed next to ‘gender’ on my ID. Say what you will about Abbey-Gayle and her gang, but they accept me as one of the boys without question, and just because ben and Mac are self-confessed nerds doesn’t mean they’ll automatically accept me. Chloe’s sister is proof enough of that…

Unsurprisingly, the flat is empty when I eventually walk through the front door, but it doesn't stay that way for long.

“Hi honey, I’m home!” Lee says in a cheerful voice as he walks through the front door.

“Very close to crossing a line there,” I caution my friend as I take two cottage pies out of the freezer and start warming them up in our new microwave.

“Meh, I would be if you didn’t have more muscles than me,” Lee retorts. “I’ve got the brains, you’ve got the brawn. That’s why this friendship’s so successful.”

“I suppose there’s a compliment hidden in there somewhere,” I snort. “Good first day?”

“Yeah, not bad,” Lee replies. “Was able to use Chwilen to get me a lot of kudos, which was fun.”

“So you’re happy to leech off your girlfriend’s fame, then?” I say, smirking as Lee rolls his eyes. “And I’m not crossing a line THERE as you do now have a girlfriend.”

“Yeah, but you’re hurting HER feelings,” Lee retorts.

“Whose, Chwilen’s or Jemma’s?” I ask, smirking again as Lee groans in frustration.

“You know the answer to that one,” my friend replies as he gets his dinner out of the microwave. “Speaking of, you going to call Chloe later?”

“Yes, obviously,” I reply. “You calling either Jemma or Chwilen?” Naturally, this earns another derisive snort from Lee.

“The one who can actually talk back,” Lee replies. “And before you make another comment, I’m an engineer, not a programmer, I can’t put any A.I. into Chwilen. Yet.”

“Emphasis on ‘yet’,” I say as I get my dinner from the microwave and sit down next to Lee on the sofa. “So, umm, did- did you make any new friends today?”

“Aww, feeling a little jealous?” Lee teases, making it my turn to roll my eyes.

“No, just curious,” I reply. “And if it makes you jealous, I met two guys on my course today who have a lot in common with both of us. Hell, one even plays Warhammer.”

“Okay, that IS cool,” Lee says with a nod. “Should get them over for a gaming session some time.”

“Might do Wednesday,” I say.

“Sounds cool,” Lee says. “Let’s just make Neil and Rob jealous instead of the girls, heh. Though Jemma certainly doesn’t have any need to be jealous, heh.”

“Not many girls on your course, then?” I ask.

“Outnumbered something like eight to one,” Lee replies. “Pity really, and not for the reasons you’re no doubt thinking.”

“No, I agree with you, more girls should get into STEM courses,” I reply. “Think the Angels have been doing some promotional stuff surrounding that, even.”

“Ah,” Lee says with a look of smug realisation on his face. “Now I’m guessing THAT link got you some kudos on your course, then?”

“Well- umm…” I mumble.

“Maybe not with the Warhammer crowd,” Lee continues. “But- and this is NOT a criticism- I’m guessing boys DON’T outnumber girls eight to one on your course?”

“Umm, girls outnumber us about three to two,” I reply. “Won’t mention that to Chloe, though.”

“Was about to say,” Lee says, before a serious look spreads over his face- and it’s obvious what question’s coming next. “So, umm, do your new friends, do- do they know-“

“Didn’t come up,” I say.

“You know it will eventually,” Lee says. “Probably sooner rather than later, it can’t be a coincidence you’ve covered up your tattoo today.”

“Yeah, kinda getting close to a sensitive topic there, mate,” I say in the hopes of dissuading Lee from continuing.

“If you say so,” Lee shrugs, returning to his dinner as I’m forced to silently concede his point.

Fortunately, my mood improves almost immediately after the end of dinner when I head into my small bedroom, fire up my laptop and open Skype. Mere seconds later, a call comes through, and I’m greeted by the grinning face of my girlfriend.

“Hey, sexy!” Chloe giggles at me.

“Hey, sexiER!” I reply, making the flame-haired girl giggle even more.

“Get a room!” Lee shouts from the other side of the (sadly, very thin) bedroom door.

“We’re in a room, moron!” Chloe shouts from my screen.

“With too thin walls!” I say, making my girlfriend giggle. “Something we’re going to have to remember when you visit, heh!” Naturally, this earns another giggle from Chloe!

“Ahh, I SO can’t wait to come to London,” Chloe sighs happily. “Both to visit and when I start uni, hehe!”

“I can’t wait either,” I reply with a happy sigh of my own.

“You can’t be short of friendly faces, though?” Chloe asks. “Though I hope when I move to London I’ll be more than just a ‘friendly face’?”

“Yes, of course you will,” I chuckle. “And I have already made a couple of new friends.”

“Hmm,” Chloe murmurs. “When I said ‘friendly faces’ I did mean the other people who have that sexy tattoo on your sexy arm, hehe!”

“Oh- oh, right, yeah,” I say, trying not to fidget uncomfortably. As much as I adore Chloe, she’s second only to mum when it comes to causing me stress over my friendship with the Angels. “Probably won’t get to see them as much once I really get into it, umm, the work and everything…”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Chloe sighs sadly. “Are- are either of your new friends g- girls?”

“No, both male,” I reply, and even though she tries to hide it, I can easily tell just how relieved Chloe is by this news. Paranoia is another thing she has in common with mum…

“Can’t wait to meet them!” Chloe giggles, before grimacing as her bedroom door opens off-screen and a familiar voice makes its presence known.

“Chloe?” The unmistakable voice of my girlfriend’s older sister asks as she comes into view of the webcam. “Who are you talking t- ugh, for god’s sake…” I roll my eyes as the older girl immediately sneers upon seeing my face.

“Hi Hannah,” I say in a deadpan voice.

“You move all the way to London and still you can’t stop harassing my sister?” Hannah spits down the webcam at me. “You disgusting little freak!”

“Why don’t you just fu-“ I snap back, only to be interrupted by my girlfriend.

“Just drop the act, Han,” Chloe sneers with a smug grin on her face. “Everyone knows you’ve got no problem with transgendered people, so what is it? Jealousy ‘cause I’ve got a hunk and you haven’t?”

“A ‘hunk’ without a dick?” Hannah retorts, making my blood start to boil.

“Two words, Han: Thirteenth. Doctor,” Chloe says, smirking as her sister scowls before storming out of the bedroom.

“…She not a fan of Jodie Whittaker, then?” I ask, smirking as Hannah slams the door behind her.

“No, the opposite, she loves her,” Chloe replies. “Think she doesn’t want to love her, but she’s such a huge Whovian she does anyway, hehe! We’re even thinking of going to a local comic-con next month as different versions of the Thirteenth Doctor.”

“Cool,” I say. “I could probably pull off an Eleventh Doctor at a pinch if you think she’ll start to tolerate me by then?”

“…Not your worst suggestion actually!” Chloe giggles. “But only because Hannah went to London comic-con last year as the Eleventh Doctor.”

“And she has the nerve to criticise me?” I say with a snort of laughter.

“It wasn’t exactly the same thing that Matt Smith wore,” Chloe giggles. “Hannah made a Doctor-themed Playboy Bunny costume. Said she was inspired by the bow tie.”

“Ah, okay,” I say, a sly grin creeping across my face. “Don’t suppose she’d let you borrow it?”

“You wish,” Chloe replies, making me smirk as she sticks her tongue out at me. “So do I, actually, my dad nearly had a heart attack when he saw photos of Han wearing it, god knows his reaction if he sees me in it, hehe!”

“Just as long as he doesn’t suggest that I should be the one wearing it,” I say with a derisive snort, to which my girlfriend replies by raising her index finger. Chloe and I share a smirk as I slowly remove my t-shirt, revealing my bare chest.

“And that’s why you shouldn’t wear it,” Chloe purrs. “You don’t ‘fill’ it, hehe!” I smirk as I flex my fledgling pectoral muscles for my girlfriend, before relaxing back onto my bed as Chloe and I while away the rest of the evening chatting with each other.

Before I head to bed, I briefly log into Facebook to see if I have any notifications or messages, and I smirk as I see I have one unread message from the man who’s dubbed himself my unofficial mentor.

‘Hey Ian,’ Stuart’s message reads. ‘Hope you had a good first day at uni today, message me when you get the chance.’

‘Hey mate,’ I quickly type in reply. ‘Yeah, was good thanks, made some new friends, that sort of thing.’

‘Cool,’ Stuart replies mere seconds after I send my message.

‘Not doing anything tonight then?’ I ask with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji.

‘On a Monday? No, funnily enough,’ Stuart replies. ‘Watching Olivia sleep on the baby monitor with one eye, trying to write down lyrics with the other one.’

‘You’d have better luck if you use your hands,’ I reply, earning in return an emoji of a hand with only one digit extended.

‘Charming, especially after I message you asking how you are,’ Stuart types. ‘Seriously though, did day one go okay?’

‘Yeah, mostly,’ I reply.

‘Mostly?’ Stuart asks. ‘Guessing there was a bit of a stressful moment then, hope it wasn’t too bad?’ I let out a long sigh before typing out my reply- this is a discussion me and Stuart have had plenty of times in the past.

‘Just a Robot Wars fan,’ I type, which gets a ‘nodding’ emoji from Stuart.

‘Yeah, I know the stress that causes you,’ Stuart types. ‘Still though, at least that means you’re among other nerds, right?’

‘Yep,’ I reply with a smiling emoji. ‘Still stresses me out though, but my counsellor has given me a few pointers that help.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ Stuart replies with a smiling emoji of his own. ‘Do any of them know about ‘you know what’?’

‘Not yet,’ I type, trying not to frown as I feel my stress levels rise again. ‘Want them to actually start liking me first.’

‘I get that,’ Stuart types. ‘I was pretty much the same way when I went to uni, wanted to make friends on my own merit, that sort of thing. Luckily I met my eventual best mate fairly quickly. Even luckier for you, you already live with him.’

‘Yeah, true,’ I type. ‘I figure they’re less likely to see me as ‘Ian the transgendered guy’ if they get to know me as ‘Ian the guy’ first.’

‘Hell, that worked for me,’ Stuart types. ‘On both sides of things, if you get my meaning.’

‘Yeah,’ I reply.

‘Maybe it’d help if you told them you were a musician too?’ Stuart says with a ‘laughing’ emoji.

‘I’ve had 4 bass guitar lessons, that hardly makes me a musician,’ I reply.

‘That’s 4 more than most bassists have had,’ Stuart replies with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji. ‘You still up for number 5 on Wednesday?’

‘Sure,’ I reply. In truth, I’m not all that fussed about learning to play the bass guitar, but I do enjoy getting to spend time with Stuart and his friend Mikey (who does the actual teaching during the lessons).

‘And on a related note,’ Stuart types, ‘it’s our band’s drummer’s birthday on Saturday, you up for the party or gonna be too busy hanging out with your ‘real’ mates?’

‘You and the band are my real mates,’ I reply with a ‘rolling eye’ emoji. ‘I’ll be there.’

‘It’s going to be recorded for the next series of the Angels,’ Stuart explains. ‘I’ll have a word with the crew and try to keep them away from you.’

‘I don’t mind,’ I reply. ‘Don’t go to any trouble just for me.’ I bite my lip as I send this message- in truth, I would really appreciate it if Stuart could somehow keep the cameras pointed away from me throughout the party, but on the other hand, I don't want that to ruin the party, and as time passes I am getting genuinely less stressed about the whole 'fame' thing. Even if today's awkwardness might hint otherwise...

‘Wow, your counsellor IS good,’ Stuart types with a ‘laughing’ emoji. ‘Seriously, I’m glad to hear you’re feeling a little better about the whole ‘fellowship’ thing, and not just ‘cause I like having a little brother lol.’

‘Hilarious,’ I type with another ‘rolling eye’ emoji.

‘Anyways, Jamie’s calling so I’d better let you get back to whatever you were doing,’ Stuart types. ‘See you Wednesday!’

‘See you then!’ I type, before plugging my phone into charge and climbing into bed.

The day’s events must have tired me more than I expected, as the next thing I know my phone’s alarm is going off, and I’m dragging my tired body through to the flat’s tiny bathroom to shower and get ready for the day ahead. Lee has already gone out and my first lecture isn't until the afternoon, but that doesn't mean I have the entire morning free.

A few minutes (and two tube rides) later, I’m walking through the front door of a very posh building in the centre of the city, where I’m only waiting a few minutes before being called through to one of the building’s clinics. My counsellor isn't cheap, but in exchange for a quick divorce, my father was only too happy to turn over a sizeable chunk of his wages to mum each month, and in turn, she helps to pay to keep my mental health in check. Which, considering the damage she's done to it over the last 18 years, is the least she can do...

“Good morning, Ian,” Dr Phillips says as I sit down on her plush sofa.

“Hi,” I reply with a nervous smile. Even though Dr Phillips is not just a highly professional counsellor, but also the mother of one of my closest friends, she still makes me feel nervous every time I come in for a session. However, the nerves quickly fade when Dr Phillips smiles reassuringly and asks her first question.

“How did your first day of university go?” The older woman asks with a warm smile.

“Umm, it was good, thanks!” I reply with a chuckle. “Bit nervous at first, but I quickly, you know, settled in, made a couple of new friends.”

“That’s good to hear,” Dr Phillips says. "I'm sure you know the question I'm about to ask next."

"I do," I sigh. "And the answer is: no, they don't, not yet anyway."

"I see," Dr Phillips says with a nod. "May I ask why you haven't told them yet? Not that you should feel pressure to do so, of course."

"I- I just felt it shouldn't be important," I reply. "I mean, they're going to see me as a guy, they're going to make friends with me as a guy, why should I need to, you know, complicate it?"

"Which is a valid point," Dr Phillips states. "You shouldn't feel obliged to tell every random person you meet that you were born into the wrong gender. However, friendship implies a certain level of trust and intimacy. Not to the level that you should tell them everything about you, but like it or not, transgender issues are still a controversial topic in this country."

"And potential friends might feel betrayed if this is kept from them?" I ask.

"True friends would never feel betrayed," Dr Phillips says. "They would, like you say, like you for being you, regardless of genetics or any other irrelevance. But we don't have the luxury of knowing that the first person we meet at a new place, be it a college or university, will be a close friend."

"And it's better to play it safe?" I ask.

"That's always sound advice whenever you set foot in a new and unfamiliar place for the first time," Dr Phillips says. "And there are ways of approaching the topic that aren't 'abrupt'." I nod and begin to take notes as Dr Phillips imparts more of her wisdom to me for the rest of the session.

With my weekly obligation out of the way, and my mind filled with advice I intend to act on, I head to the nearest bus stop where I wait for my ride to my university for the afternoon’s lecture. As I get off the bus, however, I'm greeted by a familiar face.

“Hi Ian!” Mac says with a grin as he approaches me from behind. “I thought that was you!”

“Oh, hey Mac,” I say. “Yeah, umm, just- well, obviously heading to uni, heh.”

“Mind if I walk with you?” Mac asks.

“Umm, sure,” I reply with a smile.

“Kinda surprised I’d meet up with you coming this way to uni,” Mac says. “Thought you said you lived in Highbury? I’d have expected you to come from near Victoria.”

“Oh- umm, I was- I was doing some shopping first,” I say, trying not to fidget at my obvious lie.

“Umm… You don’t have any bags with you,” Mac retorts, making me frown.

“Okay, I-“ I say, before sighing. Now REALLY isn’t the time or the place for Mac to learn the truth… “I- it- it was kinda personal, okay? Can- can I leave it at that?”

“Umm, okay,” Mac says, obviously shocked by my sudden hostility. “If it’s personal I- well, umm, yeah.”

“Thanks,” I say softly, grimacing despite myself as we head into the university in silence.

Thankfully, the silence is broken when we meet up with Ben outside the lecture hall, but I still feel uncomfortable as we take our seats. It’s true that the longer I wait before telling them the truth about me, the greater the chance of them getting to genuinely like me, but as Dr Phillips implied, the longer I wait, the longer I’ll be effectively lying to them. But am I lying, though? I told Mac and Ben that my name is Ian and that I am a man. That is not only the truth now, but as far as I’m concerned, it always has been. My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann, and as far as I’m concerned, it never was. I am NOT a girl, and as far as I’m concerned, I never was, regardless of how long it takes the gender recognition board to pull their fingers out.

After the lecture, the whole class heads to the computer lab to research some of the topics that were covered, and me and my two new friends quickly find ourselves huddled around a single screen looking at various learning materials. It isn’t long, though, before discussion turns to other university-related matters.

“So then,” Ben says with a grin, “I’m guessing you’ve both joined the uni gaming society?”

“Worked in a GAME store for two years, so, well, yeah,” I reply. “That’s ‘GAME’ as in the brand, like.”

“Yeah, I guessed,” Ben chuckles. “Mac?”

“Yep,” Mac replies. “That and the film society, always been interested in making videos, little short films, that sort of thing.”

“Cool,” Ben says with a grin. “I’m only doing the gaming society this year, don’t want to spread myself too thin, heh. Ian, are you in any other societies?”

“Hmm?” I reply, half-listening to the conversation as I try to focus on the screen in front of me. “Oh, umm, yeah, I’m also in the L-“ I pause as I suddenly realise that the next three letters I’m about to say- particularly the last one- are going to make life a lot more awkward a lot earlier than I had hoped. Then again, I can hardly stop dead mid-sentence, and I should look at this as an opportunity to get everything out in the open. After all, I’ve got nothing to be ashamed about…

“L…?” Mac asks, making me frown as the whole room seemingly falls silent.

“…GBT,” I mumble, trying to blink back tears as my face starts to turn red.

“…Well what the hell’s wrong with that?” Mac asks in a matter of fact voice. “Okay, so you’re obviously not L, and presumably not G either as you mentioned having a girlfriend, and if you’re B or T, so what?”

“You- you’re sure?” I ask, smiling as Mac and Ben both nod.

“Yeah, so what?” Ben shrugs. “Nothing for you to be ashamed of., it’s just part of who you are, right?”

“Well, yes,” I say, biting my lip. “And if I told you I was ‘T’ rather than ‘B’-“

“Same difference,” Ben shrugs. “Like if I told you I was Jewish, it wouldn’t matter either. Or if we ever find out what Mac’s first name actually is, that wouldn’t matter either.”

“Well- thanks,” I say with a sigh. “Kinda stressful every time I go somewhere new and have to explain to everyone, you know?”

“Yeah, I can kinda get that,” Mac says. “Though you could always have just, you know, not told us?”

“…And then people get pissed off at me for keeping secrets from them,” I say. “Do you remember what happened with Jamie-Lee Burke, or Steph Abbott?”

“Umm… No,” Ben says. “Neither of those names actually ring a bell with me.” I open my mouth to reply, before remembering that as close friends as I may be with them and as famous as they are, it doesn’t mean that everyone will know their name. I let out a small shudder as I realise that not only would mum deeply approve of me name-dropping my friends like that, I would also be the very type of person she'd want me hanging out with...

“I know who Steph Abbott is,” Mac says, surprising me.

“You- you do?” I ask. “Really?”

“Yeah, my little sister’s a big Out of Heaven fan,” Mac shrugs. “Personally, I think it’s cool there’s a girl band out there with a transgendered member.”

“Well- thanks,” I say with a genuine relieved smile. “It really is a weight off to know that you two don’t have any problem with, well, me.”

“Ian, mate, it’s 2018, the only people who have a problem are god-botherers and the UKIP brigade,” Mac says.

“Yeah, I wish it was just limited to those two groups,” I snort. “Can tell you a few horror stories. My girlfriend’s sister, for starters.”

“Eesh,” Ben says. “…Just- just so we’re clear, right, you- were-“

“Female, transitioning to male, that’s right,” I confirm to understanding nods from my two friends. “And no, I’m not telling you what my name used to be, as that’s as irrelevant as Mac’s first name.”

“Good man,” Mac chuckles.

“Thanks,” I chuckle. “And for that ‘man’ comment I can try to see if I can get Steph Abbott to send some signed stuff to your sister if you’d like?”

“…So, you actually KNOW Steph Abbott, then?” Mac asks.

“Yeah,” I reply with a nervous chuckle. “It- it’s a long story, but yeah, we’re friends, and not just ‘cause we’re both trans, but we have other non-trans friends in common. Like I said: long story.”

“Meh, that’s still cooler than literally anyone else I know,” Mac shrugs. “And yes, my sister would love some signed stuff if you can get it, but no pressure if you can’t, honestly.”

“Meh, all I have to do is send a text,” I say as I get my phone out of my pocket. “What’s your sister’s name?” I frown as Mac hesitates before answering. “…Mac?”

“It- it’s Yuna,” Mac replies. “Y-U-N-A.”

“Huh, that’s a unique name,” I shrug as I compose a text message to my friend Nikki (who acts as PA to the Angels and occasionally to out of Heaven as well). “I’ll let you know when I hear back, okay?”

“Umm, sure,” Mac says, suddenly as distracted and uncomfortable as I was immediately before coming out to him and Ben.

“Anyway, think we’ve spent enough time not working, heh,” I say as I turn my attention back to the computer screen, my new friends quickly following suit. As we work, I feel myself relax more and more, safe in the knowledge that my new friends have learned the truth about me, and if anything, it’s only made them like me even more. Sure, there’ll be times when this won’t be the case- every university has the occasional moron, after all- but I’m confident that those times will be in the minority. And even if they aren’t, that’s why the LGBT society exists- to provide a guaranteed safe space for when I’m feeling vulnerable. And there's at least one other person I know who'll also be in the society...

As we leave the university at the end of the day, though, I’m reminded exactly why such safe spaces are necessary when the three of us pass a group of girls and almost immediately trigger a giggling fit from them. Even though years of experience and counsellor meetings have taught me to ignore such things, I can’t help myself and I turn my head to face the source of the giggling, which only makes it intensify.

“Ugh, just- just ignore them, mate,” Ben advises as we keep walking. “They must’ve overheard us or something.”

“Yeah,” I sigh. “By Friday everyone in the uni will know, but that’s probably for the best, get it over and done with quickly. If they have a problem, they can say it to my face. Otherwise, fuck them.”

“Did- did you get that a lot at your old college?” Mac asks. “In Wales, I mean?”

“Sometimes,” I shrug. “I tried to not let it get to me, but it’s not always easy. Though like I said, you learn to go through life just ignoring shit like that.” And god knows I’ve had much, much more than just a bunch of giggling morons to deal with, I think to myself. “The trick is to concentrate on the good things in your life. Like, for example, friends.”

“Speaking of,” a familiar female voice calls from behind as she quickly walks up to me and my friends with a grin on her face.

“Oh, hey Ellie!” I say with a smile as the young transgendered woman greets me with a gentle hug. “Guys, this is Ellie, a friend of mine, Ellie, this is Ben and this is Mac, they’re on my course.”

“Nice to meet you,” Ben says as he and Mac greet Ellie with polite handshakes. “How- how do you and Ian know each other? I thought he said his girlfriend was still in Wales?”

“Oh- we- we’re not ‘together’,” Ellie says. “No offence, heh.”

“None taken,” I chuckle. “We… We kinda have a mutual friend, heh.”

“Steph?” Mac asks, smiling as Ellie and I both nod. “That is SO cool that you’re part of a big ‘family’ like that. Umm… If- if you don’t mind me asking, I mean-“

“Yes, the answer to your question is ‘yes’,” Ellie says quietly. “Though if that’s a problem-“

“It isn’t,” Ben says with a smile.

“Though it is cool that I’m not the only one,” I say with a smile that Ellie reflects. “Think we’re the only two starting UAL this year, though.”

“Meh, just means we need to stick together when we’re here, then,” Ellie chuckles. “Anyways, I’ve got to head home now, but maybe catch up with you guys later in the week?”

“Sure, that’d be good,” Mac replies. “What course are you on?”

“Music,” Ellie replies.

“Ah,” Mac chuckles. “Hoping to be the next Steph Abbott, then?”

“Maybe,” Ellie shrugs. “I’d much rather be the first Ellie Blake, though!” The three of us smile and wave as Ellie leaves the college, before resuming our walk toward the exit.

“Well, you’ve got at least three people on your side, then,” Mac chuckles. “And it’s cool that you both know Steph Abbott too, like, are- is there, you know, some sort of ‘club’ or something?”

“Ehh… Kind of, kind of not,” I say, before smirking and rolling up my shirt sleeve. “It’s not like there’s a secret society of transgendered people trying to impose our will on the world, despite what some conservative nutjobs would have you believe, even if I do have this!” I smile as I show off my ‘fellowship’ tattoo to my new friends, which also attracts the attention of some nearby girls- well, either the tattoo or my biceps, anyway!

“Hey- umm, excuse me,” one of the girls says as she nervously approaches me. “I, you know, don’t want to, like, come off like I’m staring or anything, but is- is that the same tattoo that Jamie-Lee Burke and Steph Abbott have?”

“And Jamie’s husband, and a few of our other friends, yep,” I say with a proud smile, trying to put thoughts of my mother's approval out of my mind. It's me the girls are interested in, after all, not her or anyone else. I hope.

“Oh my god, that is so cool!” The girl says as I lower my sleeve back down.

“Umm… You DO know what that logo symbolises, right?” I ask hesitantly.

“Yeah, so what?” The girl replies with a shrug as I grin.

“Exactly,” Mac says with a warm grin. “Anyway, got to get off myself now, got to eat dinner before I spend the rest of the evening nerding out. Are we still meeting up tomorrow?”

“Umm, sure, say twelve o'clock in the library?” I suggest. “Gives us enough time for a lie in?”

“Works for me,” Mac shrugs. “See you then!”

“I’d better get off too,” Ben says. “I’ll leave you to your ‘fans’, heh.”

“Okay, see you both tomorrow!” I say, waving my friends away as I turn back to my ‘fans’, who predictably have plenty of questions about Jamie, Steph and the other Angels and members of Out of Heaven- and gratifyingly, very few questions about my transition. There’s still a niggling voice at the back of my head that tries to remind me that if mum were here, she’d love me being the centre of attention, being able to play off my relationship with Jamie & co to score ‘points’, but as much as it stressed me out in the past, I’ve come to realise that Jamie and co became friends with me because of who I am, not who I was forced to be, or any public 'mask', but just me. And I don't need to suck up to them or anything, I just need to be the friend to them that they are to me. I just wish I could convince the voice in my head of that fact...

I arrive home a short while later, again finding the flat empty, though Lee returns a short while after I do. The evening goes much the same way as yesterday- dinner, watching TV and Skyping with Chloe (during which I don’t mention the female attention I got today)- though before I go to bed I make sure to speak to Lee about what Mac, Ben and I were discussing earlier.

“What time you heading out tomorrow?” I ask Lee as we start to get ready for bed.

“Same time as every other day this week,” Lee replies with a mock sigh. “This is a university that doesn’t mess around, as I’ve already mentioned to you several times.”

“Yes, yes, okay, I was only asking,” I say. “Back the same time as well?”

“Good guess,” Lee replies. “Why are you so curious?”

“Just wondering if you’d mind if a couple of mates came over?” I ask. “You know, a few beers, a few games, that sort of thing. We’re meeting up at the library tomorrow, and-“

“Yeah, and a library is still a library, I get it,” Lee says with a nod of his head. “Sure, I don’t mind them coming over, me casa su casa after all.”

“What did I say about quoting Pulp Fiction?” I ask, rolling my eyes as Lee flashes me a wide, cheesy grin. “Well- cheers, we’ll probably be here before you come back tomorrow, kinda got a busy morning myself.”

“Your guitar lesson?” Lee asks.

“Yeah, and something else,” I say with a nervous smile.

That nervous smile stays on my face early the following morning as I walk into a small health clinic near my flat, where I receive my weekly injection of testosterone into my arm. As the liquid flows through my veins, I feel both a sense of relief and a sense of power, like the testosterone is 'curing' me of an illness. Or, in this case, a birth defect. This sense of power stays with me as I leave the clinic and head to a familiar house in the west of London, where two of my friends- and their infant daughters- are waiting to greet me.

“Hi mate!” Stuart says as I walk through his front door.

“Hi Stu,” I reply with a grin. “Hi Mikey!”

“Hey Ian!” The tall, long-haired man replies in his typical excited manner as he greets me with a handshake while cradling his one-year old daughter in his free arm. “Stu tells me you just started at university this week?”

“Umm, yeah,” I reply with a nervous chuckle.

“It’s not like we haven’t had plenty of parties celebrating that fact already,” Stuart says, earning an eye roll from his best friend.

“Yes, that many that I didn’t know exactly which week it was!” Mikey retorts. “Not that it isn’t worth celebrating, heh! Come on through to the lounge, I’ve got your guitar all set up.”

“And no, Olivia HASN’T been using it as a pacifier,” Stuart chuckles, giving his daughter a kiss as Mikey places his own daughter down next to Olivia in her playpen.

“So how’s uni been going, anyway?” Mikey asks as I pick up my 4 stringed guitar and begin tuning it up.

“It’s good,” I reply. “Just settling in this week, getting my first few assignments, some reading done…”

“Yeah, I remember freshers’ week,” Mikey chuckles. “Well, some of it, anyway!”

“Was about to say,” Stuart says with a snort of laughter. “6’ 3”, just over 15 stone, completely bladdered after 3 pints.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault I was raised in Mapperley instead of St. Annes,” Mikey retorts. “And if we’re talking about ‘bladdered’, that time we went to Edinburgh-“

“Okay, let’s not discuss this in front of the kids,” Stuart laughs. “Other than to ask if Ian’s been to any student parties yet?”

“Umm, not yet,” I reply. “Hardly know anyone on my course- well, aside from a couple of guys, anyway. Oh, and Steph’s friend Ellie, but she’s studying music instead of graphic design, so, well, yeah.”

“Smart girl,” Mikey chuckles, earning a nod from Stuart and an eye roll from me. “Meh, I’m sure once you get settled in you’ll be partying every night, heh.”

“Yeah, assuming I’m allowed to ‘settle’,” I retort, earning a sad sigh from Stuart.

“You told your friends about you, then?” my unofficial mentor asks. “Didn’t take it well?”

“Oh- no, THEY took it well,” I reply. “But, you know, me being, well, ‘me’ will spread around the uni so much everyone will know by Friday. And… And I got a few ‘points and laughs’ on the way out today.”

“At a liberal arts university?” Mikey snorts. “Trust me, mate, they WILL be in the minority.”

“Take it from someone who knows from experience,” Stuart advises. “I’ve told you plenty of times about my first year at uni, right?”

“Yeah,” I reply, trying not to shudder as I recall Stuart telling me of some of the discrimination he faced. “Just kinda sucks to know it’s gonna happen throughout my life, no matter where I go or what I do.”

“That’s the price we have to pay, sadly,” Stuart shrugs. “You just have to learn to tune out the morons and focus on the good stuff, like your friends.”

“D’aww,” Mikey coos, giving Stuart a one-armed hug- something the transman quickly wriggles out of! “You started transitioning when you were sixteen, didn’t you?”

“Yep,” I reply.

“Did- didn’t you, you know… At your old college?” Mikey asks.

“Sometimes,” I shrug. “But like Stu said, I just hung around with my mates most of the time. And I was under constant stress about what my parents were going to do about my transition, so a few teenagers didn’t seem all that important at the time.”

“Well, remember this- they still aren’t,” Stuart advises. “You’re the big man on campus, and no one can say otherwise.”

“Well, when I get my certificate, anyway,” I retort.

“Your gender recognition certificate?” Mikey asks. “That’s a sure thing, isn’t it?”

“It should be,” I shrug.

“It will be,” Stuart says confidently as he and Mikey tune up their own guitars. “And so will uni.”

“…Thanks,” I say with a tired chuckle. “Actually meeting up with my new friends after this, might head to my home later to play a few games, have a few beers.”

“Sounds cool,” Stuart says. “Would invite myself along but I’ve had enough student heckholes to last a lifetime.”

“Fair enough,” I shrug. “More beer for the rest of us, heh!” I smile as Mikey and Stuart laugh, before we begin working through various chords on our guitars (with the volume obviously turned way down to protects the ears of the little ones).

After I leave the house, I muse on what was said before the lesson- not by Stuart or Mikey, but by me, when I mentioned that when I was at college, I still had the same issues that I had yesterday afternoon, the only difference was that I was so stressed about my parents that I barely even noticed. And Neil, Rob and Lee made sure to keep me distracted any time I did feel stressed out. And I also had Chloe… One thing’s for certain, though- I’d much rather deal with the disapproval of a few idiots at uni than endure even one second of the hell I went through with my parents.

One quick tube ride later, and I’m walking through the main entrance of the university’s library, where I soon find my two friends sat at a table leafing through various theory books.

“Hey guys,” I say with a smile as I sit down next to Ben and begin flicking through a book he’d discarded.

“Hi Ian,” Ben replies. “Thought we’d get a head start on reading, hope you don’t mind?”

“No, not at all,” I say.

“Been busy this morning?” Mac asks.

“Meh, just having a guitar lesson from two of the Angels’ husbands,” I say with a smirk and a shrug.

“Okay, are you SURE you’re a nerd?” Mac asks, making me grin.

“I can name every Doctor Who in reverse order, if that proves it?” I ask.

“Nah, I’ll take your word for it,” Mac chuckles.

“Though as you’re from Cardiff, that example does kinda have an unfair home advantage, heh!” Ben chuckles.

“Heh,” I laugh, before biting my lip nervously. “I was also- also kinda getting, umm, an injection too… Kinda do every Wednesday morning now.”

“Oh, the- the, umm, hormones?” Ben asks. “I- I did a bit of reading up last night, hope you don’t mind?”

“Oh- no, not at all,” I say. “It’s not like you’ll ever need to give me the injection or anything, heh.”

“Heh,” Ben chuckles. “I hate needles myself, doubt I’d be able to give you the injection if I tried, heh.”

“Meh, it’s worth it,” I shrug. “Feel kinda like, you know, Thanos? Like every injection of T is like adding another infinity stone, or something.”

“…Yeah,” Mac chuckles nervously. “Did say your ‘nerd cred’ was accepted, heh.”

“And you’re not exactly bald and purple either,” Ben says. “Though you’re not far off in terms of muscles, heh!”

“Thank you!” I chuckle bashfully. "So, umm, after this, do- do you two want to head back to my place, like, for a few games, a few beers?"

"Sure," Ben shrugs. "After your Thanos comment I would suggest watching Infinity War, but we probably won't have the time for that, heh!"

"Hasn't stopped me watching it twice since it came out on DVD," I laugh. "Mac? You up for game night?"

"Sure," Mac replies with a shrug. "Will have to clear it with my parents, but that shouldn't be an issue."

"Same here," Ben says.

"Meh, just tell them that you're eighteen and can do what you want," I reply with a shrug of my own.

"Ehh... I'm actually NINEteen," Mac replies, biting his lip nervously. "Did an access course last year, that's why I'm starting uni a year late."

"And?" Ben asks matter-of-factly. "Just tell them you're nineteen and can do what you want."

"Heh, I suppose," Mac says with a smile. "...Okay, gaming session it is!"

"Cool!" I say with a confident smile as we get back to our work.

We leave the library shortly before closing time and head to the nearest bus stop for the journey back home, both of my friends clearly excited by the prospect of an evening of gaming and geeking out- though not as excited as I am, especially at the prospect of getting to know my friends better.

“Nice place,” Mac says with a genuine smile as we arrive back home and I hand my friends each a cold bottle of beer. “Was expecting it to be, you know, smaller.”

“It’s not exactly huge,” I retort. “Cheapest one we could find with two bedrooms.”

“Why do you live so far away from the uni, anyway?” Ben asks. “Got to be a pain getting the bus for an hour each morning?”

“Could it by any chance be down to the fact that you’re a fifteen-minute walk from Arsenal’s stadium?” Mac asks with a snort of laughter.

“…Maybe a little,” I chuckle. “We’re also convenient for Lee’s uni.”

“Cool,” Ben says as I switch on our PlayStation 4 and hand my friends a controller each. “Kinda looking forward to meeting him, do you reckon he’d mind if we, you know, asked about Robot Wars too much?”

“Umm, he’d probably mind if you didn’t,” I reply with a chuckle. “In fact, he’ll probably insist on it.”

“Cool,” Ben replies. “Is the robot still in Cardiff, then?”

“Yeah,” I reply with a chuckle. “It wouldn’t really fit in here, heh. Lee might make a new lightweight one, though.”

“Awesome,” Ben says as we settle down to our gaming session, my body completely relaxing as I realise I truly am among good friends.

We only have the time to play one round of Call of Duty WW2 before the front door of the flat opens and my best friend returns, though following closely behind him is another young man I've never seen before, slightly taller than Lee though much heavier set and with an unruly mop of dark brown hair.

“Hey guys,” Lee says as he and his new friend hang up their coats and head into the kitchen to get a drink.

“Umm, hi…” I reply. “Thanks for texting me to let me know you’d be bringing someone home, like I did?”

“Oh- sorry, where are my manners?” Lee says with a trademark smug grin. “After you introduced your friends to me, and all?”

”Fine, hint taken,” I say with a sigh, before turning to my new friends and speaking quietly. “It’s like this every day.” I smirk as Ben and Mac both smile and nod, before turning back to Lee and the stranger. “Guys, this is Ben and this is Mac, and guys, this is Lee, and…”

“Dan Young,” the newcomer says in a blunt voice.

“Nice to meet you,” Mac says hesitantly, clearly as taken aback by Dan’s awkwardness as I am. Lee, however, doesn’t seem too fazed by it, which is enough to reassure me that Dan’s alright, and is probably just feeling awkward being in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people- a feeling I know all too well.

“Hi, welcome to the flat,” I say to Dan, extending my hand to shake, which Dan seemingly reluctantly accepts. “I’ve ordered us some pizza, obviously I didn’t know you were coming or I’d have got you one as well but there should be enough to go around, and there’s plenty of beer in the fridge so help yourself.”

“Thank you for the pizza,” Dan says, “but do you have any drinks that don’t kill brain cells?” Okay then, I think to myself. Way to endear yourself to your host… A quick glance over at Lee, though, reveals that he’s smiling at Dan’s joke- clearly there’s some kind of in-joke that I’m not getting, so I shrug off Dan’s (hopefully) unintended insult.

“Umm, got some Pepsi in the fridge too,” I say. “We also have some Coke, but that’s in the shop down the road.”

“…So you don’t have Coke, then?” Dan asks, making me fidget as my joke- which I’d hoped would break the ice a bit- falls flat. “Pepsi will have to do, thanks.”

“Umm, you’re welcome,” I say as Dan heads into the kitchen to get his drink. “Umm, Lee…” I ask quietly. “Is- is he, you know, okay?”

“Hmm?” Lee asks, clearly amused by Dan’s behaviour. “Oh, yeah, he’s fine, just struggles a bit with crowds, you know?”

“I’m hoping he’s on your course and not someone you just dragged off the street, then?” I ask, which disappointingly doesn’t get a laugh out of Lee despite being the exact type of joke he’d make.

“Yeah, he recognised me off of Robot Wars on Monday and we’ve kinda worked together ever since,” Lee replies. “Honestly, I reckon you’ll like him if you just give him time.”

“Well- okay,” I say, before fidgeting uncomfortably as I prepare to ask a question I’m getting very sick of asking. “Does- does he know that-“

“That you’re transgendered?” Dan asks, causing my eyes to go as wide as dinner plates as he emerges from the kitchen with his drink. “No, Lee didn’t tell me, but it didn’t take me long to find out.”

“…How?” I ask, frozen to the spot with nerves.

“By Googling Lee’s name and the name of his robot when I got home,” Dan replies. “It brought up an article with details of all the team, including you.”

“…Oh,” I say, though my nerves are no less jangling as Lee and Dan take their seats and await their turn on the PlayStation.

“Though I do have to say that you’re considerably more masculine that I was expecting,” Dan says.

“Umm, thanks,” I reply, my anxiety causing my leg to start to jiggle uncontrollably. “Good job everyone else already knew…”

"I, umm, I kinda did before you told us as well," Ben says hesitantly. "I did the same as Dan, Googled the team when I got home..."

"Difference is, Ben was tactful about it," Mac says bluntly.

“So then, Ben, Mac,” Lee says, apparently feeling as tense as I am about the situation, “You both studying graphic design too?”

“Yep,” Mac replies, obviously relieved by the change of topic as well. “That’s how we met Ian, we- the three of us- are kinda the nerdy ones on the course, heh.”

“Glad to hear it,” Lee says with a wide grin. “And both of you are Robot Wars fans, which is an extra tick in your favour, heh.”

“Yeah, was gutted when it was cancelled,” Ben says. “You going to be doing any, you know, not televised competitions?”

“Might do,” Lee shrugs. “Was doing them with my dad for years before the TV show came back, so, maybe.”

"Assuming the BBC don't spend all their money on TV for morons," Dan snorts. "Though I will give them credit for not being as bad as ITV, pandering to the Jeremy Kyle crowd."

"Hard to argue, I suppose," Mac says, his facial expression making it clear he's quickly becoming fed up with Dan. Before anyone else can speak, my phone mercifully starts to ring, and I smile with relief and excitement when I see the caller ID.

“’Scuse me, got to take this,” I say, heading into the kitchen while answering the phone. “Hi Jamie! What’s up?”

“Hey college boy!” Jamie replies with a giggle, causing me to roll my eyes. “Just wanted to see how you were doing, that’s all, and you weren’t replying to Facebook messages.”

“Yeah, kinda got some friends over at the moment for a gaming session,” I reply. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Oh, trust me, I get it,” Jamie says. “Stuart’s always telling me about the parties he had while at uni, and I hardly even saw Nikki this time three years ago and she didn’t even go to uni, heh. I’ll let you get back to your fun, I just wanted to make sure you’re still coming to Jon’s birthday party on Saturday?”

“Umm, sure!” I chuckle. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Okay,” Jamie says. “Dress code for this one is the twenties, 'cause Jon's turning 29 and we figure we should rub it in, heh. So flapper dresses for us girls, and for you BOYS, things like waistcoats, flat caps, that sort of thing. If you’ve got any problems getting any part of the costume just let me know, you and Stuart are the same size so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Thanks, will do,” I chuckle.

“I’ll let you get back to your friends,” Jamie says with a giggle. “Send my love to Lee and Chloe!”

“Will do,” I reply. “My love to Stuart and Olivia too. See you Saturday!”

“See you then!” Jamie giggles as she ends the call and I head back into the living room, where Lee and Dan have taken over control of the PlayStation from Ben and Mac.

“Who was that?” Lee asks.

“Oh, just Jamie,” I reply with a sly grin, which widens when Mac gives me a double take. “Wanting to know if we’re on for Saturday’s party.”

“Cool,” Lee says with a nod. “Hope you told her yes?”

“’Course,” I say with a grin as I sit down on a beanbag and take a casual swig of my beer.

“Wh- Jamie?” Mac asks. “As in Jamie-Lee Burke?”

“Yep,” I reply proudly, though my smile soon fades when I hear what sounds like a snort of disgust come from Dan’s direction. “…Problem?”

“Yes,” Dan replies. “I didn’t realise I was going to be spending my evening with people who worship phony reality TV stars.” I bite my lip as I feel my hands start to ball into fists- though I’m not sure what offends me more, Dan insulting me or insulting my friend.

“There is nothing phony about Jamie,” I say in a low, stoic voice. “She may be a reality TV star but she is a genuinely nice person. And, umm, it’s her husband I’m the closer friend with, anyway.”

“He’s also transgender, isn’t he?” Mac asks, smirking as I nod. “Assuming that’s not what you meant by ‘phony’, Dan?”

“I pride myself on being intelligent enough to recognise that transgenderism isn’t some kind of whim,” Dan replies, clearly annoyed at being confronted. “If Jamie-Lee Burke wishes to live as a woman, then that is her business. If she wishes to live life as a glorified mannequin, I’d rather that NOT be any of my business. Though I can see why you would defend phonies, ‘Mac’.”

“Okay, that’s-“ Lee says in a vain attempt to defuse the situation.

“You got a problem with me?” Mac asks as I grimace further. “So I prefer to be known by a nickname, what’s the problem with that?”

“Is there something wrong with your first name?” Dan asks.

“Not once I can afford a deed poll application, there won’t be,” Mac says. “Is there a reason why you prefer ‘Dan’ to ‘Daniel’?”

“’Dan’ is a contraction of my FIRST name, not my last,” Dan retorts. “And besides, it isn’t a contraction for ‘Daniel’.”

“Oh, okay,” Mac shrugs. “Going to tell me what it is a contraction for or are you going to sit there being a hypocrite all night?”

“Okay, think we need to take some time here,” I say firmly.

“I agree,” Dan- or whatever his name actually is- says, pausing the game and going to get his coat. “I was under the impression I’d be spending tonight enjoying a few games with a few like-minded people. Instead I may as well be in the Big Brother house. I’ll see you at university tomorrow, Lee, assuming you don’t jet off to the Love Island instead.” I bite my lip as Dan storms out of the flat, closely followed by Lee. Obviously, every instinct is telling me that Dan's full of shit, that he's an obnoxious arsehole who's nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is... And yet, there's a part of me that remembers thinking the exact same thing not that long ago.

My musing is interrupted moments later when Lee returns to the flat and slumps down into his chair, looking utterly crestfallen.

“Lee- Lee, mate, are you alright?” I ask as Lee comes back into the living room and slumps into his chair.

“Yeah, fine,” Lee shrugs, forcing a smile on his face that I can immediately tell is fake. “S- sorry about that, guys, thought Dan’d get on well with you all- meh, live and learn I guess.”

“Okay…” Mac says hesitantly. “Maybe- maybe we should go-“

“Oh- don’t feel you need to, not just because of him,” Lee says.

“…I was going to say ‘go and get another beer’,” Mac says, bringing genuine smiles to all four of our faces.

“Agreed!” Lee chuckles as he fetches more drinks for us, while Ben and I take over control of the PlayStation.

As hard as I try to have fun, though, I remain distracted for the rest of the evening, partially by Dan’s actions but more by my reaction to them. Consciously, I do know he’s wrong. I’ve seen ‘behind the curtain’ with Jamie and her family, and I know them to be just as open and friendly as they come across on TV or on social media. And yet, I can see Dan’s point, because it’s the same stance I myself had taken for years. It’s the same stance that made me delete my Instagram months ago, the same stance that caused me more than one argument with my girlfriend… And the same anxiety that caused me to run away from London two years ago. And the most frustrating thing is that after two years of trying to convince myself that my anxiety around my mum’s ambitions for me were completely separate from my need to be a man, I’m once again questioning whether or not ‘Ian’ is just me running away from the life I was meant to lead…

Ben and Mac leave just after 9pm (we all have uni tomorrow, after all), and almost immediately after they leave, the smile Lee had worn immediately disappears, and judging by the look of concern on his face, so does mine.

“You okay, mate?” Lee asks as I clear away the empty beer cans and pizza boxes.

“Umm, yeah, sure, why wouldn’t I be?” I reply with a shrug.

“Because I know that Dan touched a sensitive area,” Lee says. “Ugh, I- I’m sorry I brought him round, I just- I dunno, I felt I needed to, like, ‘bring a friend’ or something.”

“And he was the best you could find?” I snort.

“He was the ONLY one I could find,” Lee replies with a groan, making me frown with concern as I sit down opposite him.

“Lee, mate, are- are you alright?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Lee replies, before sighing. “Sort-of. Maybe. Not really… It- I’m, umm… It’s really different, you know? From college, I mean?”

“I think I do,” I reply softly.

“Never mind the fact that I sound different from everyone else and I stick out like a sore thumb,” Lee sighs. “It’s, you know, a posh college, they hear my accent and all they picture are me living in a shed on a hill somewhere with a load of sheep. Never mind the fact that people who’ve graduated from that course in the past have gone on to work for NASA.”

“…Really, NASA?” I ask.

“Probably,” Lee shrugs. “It’s where I’ve always dreamed of working. Doubt anyone else on my course would take that dream seriously though.”

“Apart from Dan?” I ask.

“He doesn’t care what you sound like, he only cares what you act like,” Lee shrugs.

“Ironic considering he acts like a total douche,” I snort. “Him not being transphobic is probably his only redeeming feature.”

“Him not being racist, sexist or any ‘ist’ also counts,” Lee says. “He- ugh, I dunno. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, see if I can make him see where he fucked up.”

“He seems like the sort of person who’ll demand an apology before he gives one,” I snort.

“If that’s what it takes,” Lee sighs. “Really don’t want to lose the only friend I’ve made so far, you know?”

“Trust me,” I say, “You’ll have an easier time making new friends than he will.”

“If you say so,” Lee shrugs.

“And if you don’t believe me, you’ll find out on Saturday,” I say confidently as I resume clearing up our trash.

After finishing tidying up, Lee and I both opt for an early night, and after a quick text session with Chloe (to make up for not Skyping with her tonight) I climb into bed and try to put the evening’s events behind me. So what if I’m friends with someone famous? I’m not friends with them BECAUSE they’re famous, after all. And so what if I like playing videogames and watching Star Trek as well? It’s my life, not anyone else’s, and I will live it however I please. I am going to be my own man no matter what anyone else says, certainly not mum or Dan. I just wish I had a little bit more experience at living independently in this way. Or living as a man. And I certainly wish I could believe what I’m telling myself…

The following morning, Ben and Mac are understandably more subdued than normal when I meet them at the front entrance of our university.

“Hey guys,” I say in a quiet voice. “I- I’m sorry about last night-“

“Trust me mate, YOU don’t need to apologise,” Mac snorts. “Especially not the way you were spoken to in your own home.”

“Yeah,” Ben agrees. “’More obnoxious Sheldon’s the one who should be apologising to you AND Lee.”

“And both of you too,” I snort, turning to Mac. “Can’t believe he had a go at you for using a nickname when he cheerfully admits to doing the same thing.”

“I half expected him to do the same to you, actually,” Ben mumbles. “I mean, ‘Ian’ isn’t your re- umm, the name you were born with, right?”

“Right,” I say. “Though my birth name isn’t any more important than Mac’s is-“

“It- it’s Cloud,” Mac says, making me frown in confusion. “Cloud MacFarlane. Nice to meet you.”

“…You really didn’t need to tell us,” I say.

“I wanted to,” Mac- or rather, Cloud- says. “Shouldn’t be any secrets between friends, right? And that can’t possibly have been as hard as what you told us on Tuesday.”

“Well- no, I guess not…” I mumble. “But- but- and I don’t mean any offence, but-“

“Final Fantasy VII, right?” Ben asks, making Mac nod sadly. “Figured when I remembered your sister’s name was ‘Yuna’.”

“Umm… Gonna need some filling in here,” I say hesitantly.

“My parents are huge gamers and huge nerds,” Mac explains. “’Cloud’ was the main character of a game they played in the nineties, they met over a mutual love of the game in fact, so I got lumbered with the name when I was born.”

“Well, umm, it’s unique, I guess,” I shrug.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Mac snorts. “Still, I can’t complain I guess, when both your parents are avid gamers you’re never bored growing up, heh.”

“Which is more than you could say for me,” I chuckle. “Well, less ‘bored’ and more ‘frustrated and anxious beyond belief’, heh. But- but I don’t want to bore you with that.”

“If you say so,” Ben shrugs. “You’ve really never played Final Fantasy VII?”

“Never even heard of it,” I reply. “Mum would probably have a fit if she caught me playing a game with that name.”

“And Dan would probably have a fit if he learned you’d never played it,” Mac laughs, making me fidget as I’m reminded of my current dilemma.

“Probably,” I laugh, trying to remind myself of the ‘discussion’ I had with myself last night- that I shouldn’t allow myself to be judged by anyone, whether they’re family, friend or whatever the hell category Dan fits into.

Ultimately, I’m able to get through the day in one piece mentally, and when I return home, what I find on the doormat is enough to restore my confidence and optimism for the future.

Inside the envelope is a piece of paper, at the top of which is an official government logo, and underneath which are four boxes that have my name, my date of birth, the date of issue of the certificate, and the sentence 'The above named person is, from the date of issue, of the gender shown'- the gender being listed as 'Male'.

Naturally, my instinct is to celebrate what is a very, very big win for me, and before I even realise what I’m doing, I’ve taken a selfie with the certificate and posted it to Facebook, which very quickly gets dozens of likes- including, gratifyingly, one from my mother. It isn’t long before a message comes through my phone- one that quickly brings me back down to Earth.

‘Great news mate!’ Stuart’s message reads. ‘Doubt Jon will appreciate us making Saturday a double celebration, but we’re definitely going to throw you a party to celebrate once we’ve got mad week out of the way!’ A party where I’ll be the centre of attention, I think to myself, and a party that would prove Dan right in everything he said about me.

‘Thanks,’ I reply, ‘but I’d rather keep this quiet if you don’t mind, just celebrating by myself if that’s okay?’

‘Sure,’ Stuart says. ‘Offer’s still on the table in case you change your mind.’

‘You mean you need an excuse for a party?’ I ask with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji.

‘Nah,’ Stu replies with the same emoji. ‘But it’s always nice to have one and it’s especially nice to be able to celebrate a friend’s good news. You’ll never get another GR certificate, after all!’

‘Very true!’ I reply, chuckling to myself as it dawns on me that Stuart is right- as far as the law is concerned, I am as male as anybody else out there walking around with either a penis or a Y chromosome. It is now a legal, indisputable fact that my name IS Ian, and I AM a boy. Or rather, a man. I should want to celebrate this and scream it from the rooftops, but the thought of actually doing so is making me squirm. ‘Still though, I’d rather just keep this to myself, celebrate with just Lee and Chloe.’

‘It’s your life,’ Stuart replies, inadvertently treading on the very spot that’s been the most sensitive over the last couple of days. ‘Is everything okay mate? I’d have thought news like that would make you want a party?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I untruthfully reply. ‘Just getting a bit bogged down with uni work, that’s all.’

‘Already? In Freshers week?’ Stuart asks, making me fidget, but before I have the chance to reply, he types another message. ‘Wait, you told me before you were dyslexic, is it because of that?’ Not really, I think to myself, but thanks for the excuse, Stu!

'Something like that,' I type, fidgeting before asking my next question. 'Also, what you said yesterday about keeping the cameras away from me at the party, would you mind doing that anyway, please?'

'Of course,' Stuart replies. 'Is everything okay? Really, I mean?'

'Fine,' I reply, even though deep down inside, I'm really not okay.

In addition to the large part of me that wants to catch the next train back to Cardiff, there's also the part of me that's terrified by the prospect of my coursework being too hard, nervous about the possibility of being further 'outed' by everyone at my uni, and most of all, torn between my mother's attitude and Dan's attitude to my apparently contradictory lifestyle. And while I know I shouldn't be hung up on what other people think, the fact is that they both, in their own way, have a point. And worst of all, for the first time in ages this week I even began to question whether or not my desire to be male was genuine. The certificate I hold in my hands should be proof enough that I am indeed for real, and yet the fact is that my future is full of uncertainty. And the one thing of which I am most uncertain right now is myself...

Just grin and bear it, I think to myself as I’m ushered to the front of the large room, where a beer is placed in my hands and a mock crown is placed on my head.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Stuart announces, a shit-eating grin quickly spreading across his face. “We are all gathered here, several of us hundreds of miles from home, as nineteen years ago today, the world saw the arrival of Ian David Freeman.” Except it didn’t, I think to myself. Nineteen years ago today, the world saw the arrival of a baby girl named Kayleigh-Ann Walker. However, as I’ve had to prove repeatedly over the last nineteen years, my name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann and I am NOT a girl. And what makes me smile widest of all is that I’m surrounded by dozens of friends who unquestioningly accept that statement.

…And even though Stuart probably didn’t mean to include me in his ‘hundreds of miles from home’ statement (even though Cardiff is only 150 miles from London), the truth is that I don’t consider Cardiff to be my home anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud to call myself Welsh, but over the last few months, I’ve truly come to regard London as my home, thanks in no small part to the friends who have all gathered today to celebrate my birthday.

…And thanks in no small part to the fact that my mother now lives here in Cardiff. Thankfully, living with grandma means that she’s behaving herself a lot more than she used to. Her ‘migraines’ or ‘depression attacks’ are a thing of the past, she’s actually got herself a job and is making a conscious effort not to constantly ask me about my famous friends or pressure me into using them to get myself a bigger public profile- or even A public profile. However, she did need to be persuaded not to attend tonight’s party, and truthfully, I can’t wait to get back to London tomorrow.

That said, though, there are some aspects of Cardiff that I’ll miss while I’m back home- especially the petite ginger girl who sticks her hand in the back pocket of my jeans as Stuart continues his speech.

“I’m not sure the world has really recovered from it,” Stuart says, making me chuckle and roll my eyes as my mentor gives me a pat on my shoulder. “But I know I’m glad to call Ian my friend and sometimes protégé, and I’m especially glad to be here today to wish him a very happy birthday.”

“Happy birthday!” The crowd all cheer.

“Especially as it means that by saying that, my speech is now done,” Stuart says, “and I can get back to drinking my beer and playing my guitar.”

“Woo!” Stuart’s friend Mikey cheers as he and the rest of his band head back to the stage to resume playing. Meanwhile, Chloe and I head to the bar area of the large function room, where I can’t help but grin at the sight that greets me.

“Hey, birthday boy!” Mac cheers, along with Ben, Lee, Neil and Rob.

“Hey guys,” I say. “What’ve I missed while I was being ritually humiliated?”

“Not much,” Mac shrugs.

“We’d never dare have fun without you,” Lee says, making me chuckle and roll my eyes. “We were just comparing notes about uni, that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, kinda wishing I’d gone to London now too,” Neil says. “It does sound cool, all the parties you’ve been going to.” I let out a quick smile, though it quickly falters when I see the half-angry, half-jealous look in my girlfriend's eyes.

“Not as cool as this party, though!” Mac says, triggering another cheer from my friends.

“Thanks,” I say. “Stuart deserves most of the credit for it, though.”

“Doesn’t hurt to have a friend and mentor whose wife is one of the most famous women in the country,” Ben teases, making me chuckle again even as inside, I feel my stomach starting to churn.

You may have noticed one name missing from the list of friends here today- Dan declined to come today, and while I’m certainly not sorry that he stayed in London, I can almost feel his disapproving glare on the back of my neck at the 'loudness' of the party, especially with it being thrown by friends and family of the Angels- just as I can feel my mum’s approving look from the other side of the city…

“Anyways,” Mac says, “we’re gonna hit the pool table in a bit, want a game?”

“No he doesn’t,” Chloe replies before I get the chance to speak. “He wants to dance with the girlfriend he’s barely seen any of the last three months.”

“…She has spoken,” I say, laughing as Chloe gives me a gentle punch in my arm before dragging me back to the dance floor.

“So I wanted to have you by myself for a while,” Chloe says as we cling to each other and sway to the music. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“No, of course not,” I reply. “God knows I wouldn’t have minded just spending the evening with you, quietly…”

“Yeah…” Chloe says in a quiet, awkward voice. “I wish you didn’t have to go back to London tomorrow…”

“I wish you could come to London with me!” I retort. “Somewhere where we won’t have my grandma or your family, you know, getting in our way…”

“Well- just a few months and I’ll be there,” Chloe reminds me. “Assuming you can drag yourself away from all these student parties, anyway…” O-kay, I think to myself. Not guilt tripping me at all…

“Well,” I reply. “I’ll just have to drag you TO all of them, won’t I?” The giggle my girlfriend gives me is enough to tell me that I’m out of whatever doghouse I was in- for now, anyway.

“Ahh… Still sucks that you’re going back tomorrow, though,” Chloe sighs.

“Mm,” I grunt in agreement, even if there is a large part of me- a part that I do my best to hide from my girlfriend- that’s looking forward to going back.

“Still,” Chloe giggles. “At least you’ll get to be at the big Angel New Year’s party tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah,” I chuckle nervously. Truthfully, though, I really don't want to go to the party. I had fun at last year's party, sure, but that was despite all the TV cameras being there, and I could really use a 'quiet' night.

“Yeah,” Chloe whispers as we continue dancing. “Are you staying here overnight or are you going back home?” It takes me a while to realise that by 'here', Chloe means the hotel, rather than the city. And by 'home', she means grandma's house, and not London.

“Umm, back home,” I reply. “All of the London gang are staying here in the hotel overnight, though, why do you want to know?”

“Reckon they’d let us, you know, ‘borrow’ it for a while?” Chloe purrs, making my whole body tingle with anticipation.

Twenty minutes later, after borrowing Mac’s room key on the pretense of ‘changing my clothes’, Chloe and I return to the party area hand in hand and with wide, happy grins on our faces. I allow myself a small blush as we pass by the stage area where the band are playing, where Stuart gives me a sly thumbs up. After sharing a giggle with my girlfriend, we head to the back area with the pool table, where my five friends are still huddled together.

“…Changed your mind, then?” Mac asks as he takes his shot.

“Umm, about what?” I ask.

“Your shirt,” Mac replies, reminding me of the excuse I gave for needing his room key.

“Yeah, THAT’s why he wanted privacy,” Lee says, before laughing as Chloe grabs a pool cue and gives him a quick whack in the shins with it.

“Ah, you want to join in the tourney, then?” Neil teases, making my girlfriend roll her eyes.

“I’m 5’ 1” and wearing my shortest skirt,” Chloe retorts. “I really want to be bending over a pool table, don’t I?”

“Watch what you say next,” I caution my friends, earning mocking ‘oohs from all of them as I link fingers with my girlfriend.

“You want a game, Ian?” Ben asks.

“Ehh… Maybe later,” I reply.

“Well- we’re not going anywhere,” Mac says with a smile.

“Unlike some,” Lee says, making me and the rest of the boys smirk as Chloe hits him in the shins again.

“I’d better take that before you start aiming at his eyes,” Rob says, taking the cue from Chloe and setting up the table for a game against Mac.

“Or another part of my anatomy,” Lee teases.

“DON’T tempt me,” Chloe threatens, before waving a finger in my face. “And you can shut up too.”

“Didn’t say anything,” I plead.

“I know, but you’ve been living with him for too long,” Chloe says as we head back out to the main party area, where my arrival is once again greeted with a cheer.

“Ah, there he is,” Stuart says in a teasing voice. “The man of the hour…”

“Do NOT give another speech,” I warn my mentor, who simply laughs in response.

“No, wouldn’t dare,” Stuart replies. “It’s just that Dan’s nipped to the toilet and we need our backup bassist up here. So come on, hop to it!” I sigh and try not to blush as I head up on stage to yet more cheers, and pick up the instrument that my friend has left for me.

“Don’t worry too much,” Stuart says to me in a quiet voice. “This is a very simple one you’ve played before, not many chord changes, and, as you know…”

“No one listens to the bassist anyway,” I say, earning a supportive grin from my mentor. I take a deep breath as I tune the instrument, before following the rest of the band’s lead as we play Come Together by the Beatles.

Once the song’s over, I let out a loud sigh of relief, but I can’t help but cringe as the crowd let out a long round of applause, and while my stress is soothed slightly when Chloe rushes to the stage and gives me a long, deep kiss, I still feel tense as the spotlight stays fixed on me, just as mum wanted throughout my whole life…

Fortunately, even though I’m still the guest of honour, I stay out of the spotlight for the rest of the night, and I quickly relax- and as time passes, even the feeling of being on stage doesn’t feel so bad in hindsight. This could, however, be due to the number of beers I drank, which clouds my memory of much that happens later in the night; and results in a splitting headache the following morning when a loud banging noise wakes me from my slumber.

“Ian!” Grandma shouts through the door, making me groan in pain as I huddle under my warm sheets. “Ian, it’s 8am, your friends will be here soon to take you back to London!”

“Unf,” I moan as I slowly open my eyes and immediately regret it. “I’ll be downstairs in a bit…”

“Well hurry up, your breakfast’s getting cold!” Grandma admonishes, making me groan with pain as I roll out of bed and pull on my plain grey dressing gown. I take several deep breaths to try to clear my head as I walk down the stairs to the kitchen, where the smell of bacon frying makes my mouth water and stomach churn at the same time. I instantly tense up, though, when I see my mother sitting opposite me at the kitchen table.

I should point out, in the interest of fairness, that living with my mother for short periods over the holidays isn’t nearly as horrific as living with her full-time. Grandma’s presence is the main reason for this- on more than one occasion she’s had to play ‘referee’ whenever mum and I have had a disagreement, but every time she does, I feel guilty- she is seventy-six, after all, and I can tell how much it’s breaking her heart to watch her child and grandchild not get on. As time has gone on, mum has become more accepting of me, accepting of my career choice, my friend, my girlfriend, and of me as a man. However, it still makes me tense up every time she looks at me with the same expectant look she had in her eyes all throughout my childhood…

“Good morning,” mum says, trying not to frown as I tuck into my bacon sandwich- a breakfast that’s a far cry from the vegan diet she forced on me when I was younger.

“Morning,” I reply.

“Did you have a good night last night?” Mum asks. “I haven’t seen any photos on Facebook yet…” Nor are you likely to, I think to myself, given that I’m the only person on your friends list who was there and I’m not likely to upload any…

“Yeah, it was fun,” I reply. “Was great getting to introduce my uni friends from London to Neil and Rob.”

“I know how much you’ve been missing your Robot Wars friends,” grandma says with a smile. “I imagine you’ll miss them when you go back to London?”

“Yeah, but we still get together for online gaming sessions at least once a week,” I reply. “It’s Chloe I’ll miss the most, heh.”

“I bet!” Grandma teases. “Still, in just a few months, she’ll be living in London too…”

“Yep,” I reply. “And we’ll both be adults, able to do whatever we want, whenever we want…” I try to suppress a smirk at the disapproving look on my grandmother’s face- though the emotionless look on my mother’s face soon brings my mood crashing back down.

“Anyway,” Grandma says, “you’d better get that down you, you’ve got a long drive back to London. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather travel by train? It’s bound to be more comfortable…”

“Nah, I’ll be okay in the van,” I reply. Probably more comfortable than I was at the party, I think to myself with a smile as I anticipate the trip back, three hours in a van with some of my best friends- in many ways it'll be even more enjoyable than the party itself.

Just over 45 minutes later, the minibus pulls up, and I waste no time in lugging my heavy case downstairs. I have a sad smile on my face as I bid farewell to Grandma with a hug, and a relieved one as I exchange an awkward hug with my mother, knowing it'll be the last one we exchange for a good long while. My smile widens, though, when I drop my bags in the back of my friend’s minibus and climb into one of the back seats alongside my flat mate, who’s clearly suffering just as much as I was this morning.

“Take it we all had a good night last night, then?” I ask, earning tired grunts and growls from Lee, Mac and Ben.

“Some better than others,” Stuart says from the front passenger seat.

“Great party, though,” Stuart’s friend (and the band’s lead guitarist) Mikey says from the driver’s seat.

“Oh, definitely, thank you SO much for it,” I say with a genuine grin.

“Nah, thank YOU for letting us do another gig!” Mikey chuckles. “I know you’re not a fan of being in the spotlight, but you did really well last night.”

“Yeah, you were a natural,” Mac concurs. “From what I remember, anyway.”

“Yeah, well don’t book me for any more gigs,” I say with a tired chuckle. “Gonna be kinda busy with uni work in the next few weeks?”

“Our regular bassist’s gonna be busy with three kids under the age of 5 in the next few months,” Stuart retorts. “But it’s okay, we’re not gonna get you up on stage again.”

“Unless we really, really need you,” Mikey teases, making me roll my eyes. “Neither of you guys play any instruments, do you?”

“I took violin lessons when I was younger,” Ben replies.

“Ah, that’s cool,” Mikey replies.

“What, the violin, really?” Ben replies with an uncertain look on his face.

“I can play it,” Mikey says. “I’m teaching Stuart it when I can.”

“Isn’t it a bit, you know…” Ben says, before biting his lip as his words trail off.

“…Girly?” Stuart asks, filling the van with an awkward silence.

“Ugh, sorry…” Ben moans. “I just- I just got, you know, teased a lot at school ‘cause I played the violin, that’s all.”

“Shouldn’t be ashamed of it,” Mikey shrugs. “I love playing the violin, composing for it too. Lemmy from Motorhead also played the violin.”

“When you think about it,” Stuart says, “the only thing that’s really ‘girly’ is, well, being a girl. And I don’t see any in this van, right?”

“Right,” my friends all reply, making me smile with pride.

“Speaking of, though,” I say.

“Yes, we’ll stop at Chloe’s so you can say goodbye to her,” Mikey says, making me grin again as I’m subjecting to some good-natured jeering. “Her parents aren’t likely to let her come to London though, are they?”

“Well, last year they said she could this year,” I reply. “Doubt they will, though. And I doubt she’d want to spend three hours in a van with six guys, heh.”

“Oh, I imagine she wouldn’t mind being snuggled up to you for all that time,” Lee teases.

“I know I wouldn’t,” I reply with a grin. “I also know that exactly 365 days ago, you were riding back to London in a car with four girls.” I smirk as the good-natured jeering turns in my friend’s direction, who simply rolls his eyes before smirking himself.

“One of whom I later got off with,” Lee reminds the rest of us.

“Yes yes yes,” Stuart sighs as the van pulls onto the estate where Chloe lives.

I sigh and shake my head at the ribbing the boys give me as the van pulls up outside my girlfriend’s house, before I jump out and knock on the front door. As always, I brace myself for a confrontation- Chloe still lives with her two sisters, neither of whom are particularly fond of me. However, of the two, it’s the youngest I’d prefer to answer the door, and my mind flashes back to next year as the door opens and Chloe’s 14-year-old sister greets me with an angry sneer.

“Hi Rosie,” I say. “Chloe up yet?” Before she responds, Rosie looks behind me at the van, then glances furtively up and down her street. “…No, no Angels this year, I’m afraid.” I smirk smugly, deepening the teenager’s frown as she leans back into her house.

“Chlo!” Rosie shouts up the stairs. “Your boyfriend’s here!” I grin as the unmistakable sound of someone practically skipping down a flight of stairs comes from within the house, followed seconds later by my girlfriend greeting me with a long, deep kiss.

“Hey you,” Chloe says, stealthily slipping a hand into the back pocket of my jeans.

“Hey,” I reply. “Just thought I should, you know, say goodbye in person before I go back to London.”

“You thought right,” Chloe teases, before letting out a long, angry sigh. “Just wish I could go back with you, but you know, mum…”

“Yeah,” I sigh. “But I have uni work, and, well- yeah…”

“Yeah,” Chloe says, fidgeting as an awkward silence falls over the two of us. “Well, don’t stay away too long, okay?”

“I won’t,” I reply, exchanging another kiss with my girlfriend before reluctantly heading back to the minibus and collapsing into my seat with a heavy sigh.

“All good?” Stuart asks with a sympathetic smile. “I know the whole ‘long distance’ thing can be a pain, heh.”

“He speaks from experience,” Mikey says as we drive away. “First half of his final year at uni he was sulking over a girl he’s met in London over the summer.”

“Didn’t you go to uni in London, then?” Mac asks.

“Nah, studied at Nottingham uni,” Stuart replies. “First time ever living away from home, heh. Sure, I missed my family, and yes, my then-girlfriend a lot, but believe me, it’s well worth the experience in the end. You will be glad you did it.”

"When you eventually move out, anyway," Lee teases Mac, who rolls his eyes and sighs.

"Just means I have more spare money to spend on going out," the blond-haired boy retorts, making the rest of the car chuckle.

"Same here," Ben says. "Yeah, I know it's lame, heh."

"Hey, I lived at home when I was at uni," Mikey says. "Do I regret not moving away to study? Maybe a little. But I'm living independently now, I've got a great career, a gorgeous wife and the cutest daughter in the world."

"Careful," Stuart cautions his best friend, who chuckles. "Sorry, the conversation's going to get a bit 'dad' for the next few minutes."

"Occupational hazard of having mates several years older than you, I'm afraid," Mikey says with a chuckle. "Even if we do drive you everywhere and pay for the parties."

"For which I am grateful, believe me," I say. "Even if Lee could technically have driven us if-"

"Oh- shut up," my best friend cautions me. "You really want ME driving THAT car at 70 miles an hour on a motorway?"

"Might be fun," Ben shrugs, making the rest of us laugh.

“Like we were just discussing, you only regret the things you don’t do,” Mikey muses.

“That’s definitely been true for me,” I say with a smile as I stretch my legs out and prepare for the long drive home.

Sure, I’ve made mistakes, and there are parts of my life I’d like to go back and erase- the scars on my right wrist are a constant reminder of some of my worst mistakes- but the decisions I’ve made have led me to this point in my life right here, right now, surrounded by friends, with an amazing, cute girlfriend and at least one member of my family who I can rely on. And most importantly, my decisions have led me to having a body with a flat chest, a firm, muscular physique and hair covering my whole body, even my face. And despite the depression, and anger and the often physical pain I’ve had to endure, I’d go through it all again to be able to sit here and say, 100% truthfully, that my name IS Ian and I AM a man.

Three long hours later, the minibus pulls up outside our London flat and Lee and I pile out, both of us letting out a long sigh of relief as we drop our bags in the hall and drop ourselves down onto the sofa.

“Hi honey, we’re home,” Lee says, making me sigh and roll my eyes. “Heh, never thought I’d be glad to call London my home!”

“It’s kinda weird for me too,” I retort. “And I lived here for, like, fifteen years, heh.”

“Still planning on moving back to Cardiff once you’ve graduated?” Lee asks, making my bite my lip.

“Maybe,” I reply. “It’ll depend on what Chloe’s doing.” And what the rest of my family are doing, I think to myself. The reason I moved to Cardiff in the first place is that it was where my mother wasn’t. Now that she is in Cardiff, the city’s definitely lost its appeal- though there’s nothing that says I’d have to live with my family if I moved back, especially if Chloe’s still living there as well. However, this is a discussion for another time, and there are more pressing matters to attend to first…

“Fancy some lunch?” I ask my friend.

“Thought you’d never ask,” Lee says, taking out his phone and opening a takeaway delivery app. “What are we doing tonight, then? Going to the Angels’ party? You’ve got an implied invite, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, kinda,” I reply. “I dunno. From what Stuart was saying there might not be a big New Year party this year anyway, with Charlotte having three young children and all. And to be honest, I- I kinda…”

“Yeah, I get it, it’s fine,” Lee shrugs. “After last night I kinda fancy a quieter night anyway. Heh, as lame as that makes me sound.”

“Nah, you’re not lame, just not a stereotypical student,” I say.

“Fuck stereotypes,” Lee says with a confident smirk as he gets up and takes his bag into his bedroom. “Food’ll be here in 30 minutes, you want to shower or anything?”

“…Thanks for the hint,” I say.

“Not meant as a hint,” Lee retorts. “Though that was a long trip in a cramped minibus…”

“Yeah, well if my girlfriend doesn’t complain about it, you don’t get to,” I say, before sighing. “…Okay, I’ll jump in the shower, I could probably use it, heh.”

“Goodo,” Lee says. “Is- is everything okay between you and Chloe?”

“Sure,” I reply. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I dunno,” Lee mumbles. “You two just seemed a bit, you know, awkward last night, that’s all.”

“Well- we’re fine,” I say as I enter the bathroom. “Just struggling a bit with the whole long-distance thing, think she was miserable that I had to come back home today. And even if we weren’t fine, remember the bro code.”

“Hands off a bro’s ex for six months, yes, I know,” Lee says. “Anyway, I’m just saying, I made a long-distance relationship work last year, so if you need any help-“

“Didn’t Jacinta end up dumping you?” I remind my friend.

“Okay, yes, yes, if you don’t want to talk about it, fine, I know when my advice isn’t wanted,” Lee says with a sigh.

“Water’s going on now anyway, so I wouldn’t be able to hear you,” I say as I strip off and turn on the shower, sighing as the warm water cascades over my body.

I have to admit to myself, though, that Lee does have a point. The physical distance between me and Chloe has strained things a lot over the last few months, though it hasn't strained my feelings for her- she'll always be my first proper girlfriend, the first girl who saw me for what I am- not a girl, but a MAN.

Our lunch arrives just after I finish drying myself down, and after eating, I head to my room to unpack while Lee immerses himself in his coursework in the living room. Once I’ve finished, I flop back on my bed with my phone and log into Facebook, hoping to find my girlfriend online for a chat, but I quickly toss my phone onto my bed in frustration when I see that she’s offline. This isn’t surprising- I knew ahead of time that Chloe is working in her part-time job today- but it doesn’t make me any less stressed, especially after my conversation with Lee. Before I can log out of Facebook, though, my phone pings to inform me of an incoming message.

‘Hey mate, you settled back in okay?’ Stuart’s message reads.

‘Yeah, fine,’ I reply. ‘Jamie okay with you getting back home and immediately messaging me then?’

‘I’m not THAT whipped,’ Stuart replies with a ‘middle finger’ emoji that I reply to with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji. ‘She and Olivia stuck around just long enough for me to say hi to them before heading out with mine and Jamie’s mother and my sisters.’

‘And you need me to be a surrogate ‘little brother’ then?’ I ask, chuckling as I get another obscene emoji in response.

‘Just wanted to see if you’re okay and if you’re coming to the party tonight?’ Stuart asks. ‘And to apologise again about the whole ‘spotlight’ thing yesterday, but you were okay with it when I asked?’

‘Reckon that was just a force of habit,’ I reply. ‘I’m so used to just saying yes whenever mum asked me to do anything like that.’

‘Well don’t be afraid to say no to me next time,’ Stuart types. ‘Even though you did look like you were having fun up there.’

‘A little, maybe,’ I type, before taking a deep breath. ‘But I am going to give the party tonight a miss if that’s okay.’

‘Absolutely fine,’ Stuart types. ‘Hope you have fun tonight!’

‘You too,’ I type with a ‘smiling’ emoji, as I muse on how odd it is to have friends who place no conditions on your friendship, while the same can't be said of your so-called family...

‘G2G now, heading out with my dad and my brother-in-law in a bit,’ Stuart types. ‘My dad’s 70 next year so we’re planning a special party for him, that sort of thing.’

‘Cool,’ I type. ‘Talk to you in the New Year?’

‘Sure,’ Stuart types, before logging out and leaving me alone with my thoughts, and the fact that Stuart’s spending the day with his family leads them in only one direction.

This time of year was not a happy one for me when I was a child. Having Christmas, birthday and New Year all in the same week might be someone’s idea of a perfect holiday, but for me it meant nothing but stress and misery, because all of that time would be spent with my family. The vegan Christmas dinner was inevitably barely edible, mum would be constantly on my back to be grateful for all my presents- all of which I hated- dad would spend the time either ignoring me or arguing with mum; and when my paternal grandmother dropped round… I let out a shudder at the memories conjured up by the thought of that old hag. Especially the memories of dressing up in stupid dresses and thick, itchy tights. Fortunately, I have a new, better family to spend my time with; and while two of the people I love the most- Chloe and my maternal grandmother- are miles away in Cardiff, it doesn’t mean I don’t have plenty of friends to spend my time with. As the man that I was born to be.

Friends who all drop round after dinner to enjoy an evening of videogames, celebrating the end of one year and the start of the next. I can’t help but fidget, though, when I see one unexpected guest on our front doorstep.

“Good evening,” Dan- as in Jordan Young, Lee’s uni friend- says as he lets himself into our flat.

“Hi Dan,” I say, barely disguising my contempt for the large young man.

“I will admit, I was surprised when I got the invitation to come round,” Dan says. “I’d have thought you’d spend your New Year with your famous friends, having an orgy or whatever it is they do.”

“Yeah, well, I had an orgy last night and I’m still sore from it,” I sarcastically reply.

“Well, nevertheless, I am grateful for the invitation,” Dan says, taking me aback- his gratitude does seem sincere. “Admittedly, the only other choice was spending the evening with my sisters watching them drink themselves into a coma and fantasise about every boy band ever.”

“Well- glad to be of service,” I say. “Help yourself to a drink.”

“Thank you,” Dan says, pointedly moving the alcoholic drinks on our table to one side and helping himself to a can of Diet Coke.

“Hi Sheldon,” Mac says sarcastically as Dan sits down next to him and picks a spare controller off our coffee table.

“Hello Joey Essex,” Dan replies, making Mac (and, in fairness, everyone else) smirk. “What are we playing first?”

“Umm, we’ll let Ian choose, it was his birthday yesterday after all,” Ben replies.

“Oh yes, I almost forgot,” Dan says, taking an envelope out of the satchel he always carries with him and handing it to me. “Happy birthday, Ian. I hope your party yesterday didn’t kill TOO many brain cells.”

“Thanks,” I say, opening the envelope and putting the card with the others on our bookshelf.

“You will forgive me for skipping last night’s party, though,” Dan says.

“Very much so,” Mac says. “Figured it might be a bit loud for your tastes.”

“Indeed,” Dan says, ignoring or oblivious to Mac’s slight. “This is the kind of party I much prefer.” And despite my dislike of him, I can't help but find myself at least partly agreeing with Dan.

Our friends stick around until just after 1am, the gaming session only pausing just before midnight to usher in the start of 2019 (despite Dan’s protests at celebrating, in his words, ‘returning to an arbitrarily-chosen point of Earth’s orbit around the Sun). Thanks to my alcohol consumption during the night, I fall asleep quickly, and am only woken the following morning by the sound of the television coming from our living room.

“Good morning!” Lee says in a perky voice that grates against my hungover brain as I enter the living room, clad in only my dark blue dressing gown. “Did I wake you?”

“Guess,” I reply with a growl that makes my friend laugh. “And I was enjoying finally sleeping in my own bed again, heh.”

“Yeah, me too,” Lee sighs. “Got loads of coursework to catch up on, though, so figured I needed an early start.”

“Yeah, well I got a head start on that before Christmas for this exact reason,” I say. “Ugh, two hangovers in as many mornings is NOT fun.”

“Yeah, well think of it this way,” Lee muses. “No one’s ever hung over on January 2nd, are they?”

“How about people whose birthday is today?” I retort. “Like those unlucky sods in our year turning nineteen today, heh.”

“Heh, yep,” Lee chuckles. “Anyway, I’m probably gonna be busy all day, you got anything planned?”

“Might head along to the Angels’ coffee shop later,” I reply. “Said I’d meet up with, well, someone…”

“Ooh, don’t tell me you’re turning into a ‘girl in every city’ kinda guy, are you?” Lee teases, making me roll my eyes.

“No, it’s just Laura, one of the young girls from the ‘Fellowship’,” I reply. “The whole ‘fellowship’ met up last year on New Year’s Day, that’s not an option this year, so I’m just going to drop in to say hi.”

“Is this the same Laura who wouldn’t stop flirting with you when you first met her?” Lee asks, making me roll my eyes again.

“Maybe,” I reply. “It’s definitely the same Laura who’s 5’ 9”, got a model’s body and a ballerina’s flexibility, though.”

“…Really?” Lee asks. “She’s that flexible?”

“Yep,” I say.

“Even though she was born, well, you know…” Lee asks, trying to be tactful and sensitive- something with which he admittedly doesn't have a great deal of experience.

“She’s every bit as feminine as I am masculine,” I say, widening my friend’s eyes.

“You’ll definitely have to let me know if she ever becomes single, then,” Lee says. “I take it she has a boyfriend, you know, admirers? If she’s as fit as you described her to be-“

“She’s every bit as popular with the boys as I am with the girls,” I say with a smug grin.

“…Damn, I think I’m in love already!” Lee says, making me chuckle as I eat my breakfast.

After breakfast, I leave Lee to his work and head to the coffee shop owned by the Angels, where after a short wait in a queue outside, I find a small table to myself in the corner. It isn’t long before I have company.

“Hello, stranger!” Laura says with a giggle as she approaches my table. “My shift ends in about 10 minutes so I’ll get you your drink, then we can chat for a bit, okay?”

“Sure, works for me!” I say, watching closely as Laura sashays away in her short skirt and tight top, clothes I had to wear many times when I was younger and that don’t bring back any fond memories, but that look very appealing when wrapped around Laura’s slender body. Though that has far more to do with the body than the clothes.

A few minutes later, after removing her apron and her name badge (but keeping on her extra-short skirt), Laura comes over and sits down next to me, letting out an over-exaggerated sigh of relief that makes me giggle.

“So then, hi!” I say, making my friend giggle girlishly.

“Hi!” Laura replies. “So then… How was the big birthday party?”

“It was great, thanks!” I reply, before smiling sympathetically. “I’m sorry you couldn’t come, but I do understand why.” The day before the party, Laura received news that her paternal grandmother (with whom she had a much better relationship than I have with my paternal grandmother) had died, which obviously didn’t put her in the right mood for a big party. “Are- are you doing okay?”

“Yeah,” Laura shrugs. “Really not looking forward to tomorrow, is that bad?”

“The funeral?” I ask, smiling again as Laura nods. “It’s understandable, I guess.” As it was Laura’s paternal grandmother who died, her father will also be at the funeral, and there’s more than a little bit of history between the two of them.

“I just want to get tomorrow over and done with,” Laura sighs. “I mean, it’s mad, right? But I’m actually looking forward to going back to college, heh.”

“Yeah, I feel the same way about uni,” I say. “I arrived back in London yesterday, and I slept better last night than I did during any night I was in Cardiff.”

“Hmm,” Laura muses with a grin. “I can’t wait ‘til I go to uni. Hell, I can’t wait until I’m eighteen, hehe! Which will be later this year, and I expect to see you at the MASSIVE party that I'll have, MISTER Freeman!”

“Oh, I’ll be there,” I say with a grin that falters slightly as a very tall, very muscular boy enters the coffee shop, makes a beeline for Laura and gives her a long, deep kiss.”

“Hey babe,” the tall boy says, before fixing me with a firm, almost angry stare. “Hello.”

“Hey you,” Laura says with a giggle as the tall boy caresses her shoulder. “Ian, this is Kain, my extra-sexy boyfriend, Kain, this is Ian, a, um, friend.”

“Hello,” Kain repeats, before frowning in confusion as I roll up my t-shirt’s long sleeve.

“I’ve got one of these,” I say, rolling up my sleeve to show off my ‘Fellowship’ tattoo.

“Got it exactly 365 days ago,” Laura says as a look of realisation spreads across her boyfriend’s face.

“Ah, right,” Kain says. “Babe, you ready to go?”

“Just give us a second,” Laura says, before sighing sadly. "I did say we'd head somewhere else to get lunch, sorry..."

"No worries," I shrug. "Meeting a couple of uni friends here in a bit anyway. Assuming they can get through the queue outside, heh!"

"I'll make sure they get waved through," Laura says with a wink. "Say hi to Lee for me, and- are you still seeing your girlfriend?"

"Who, Chloe?" I ask with a nod, which seems to set Kain's mind at ease much more than my tattoo did. "I'll tell her you said hi too."

"Thanks!" Laura giggles as she slips her hand into her boyfriend's back pocket, just as Chloe did mine. "Talk soon!"

"Sure!" I say with a grin as Laura and her boyfriend head away, passing Mac and Ben on the way into the shop.

"Hi mate," Ben says, subtly looking back at the blonde girl as she and her tall lover leave.

"Mate, seriously, have you got a girl in every city?" Mac asks, making me roll my eyes.

"Yeah, because that was her brother she was groping on the way out," I reply with a sigh. "Don't think I've got much chance next to a frigging basketball player like that, have I?"

"You'd have to ask Chloe," Ben shrugs. "Think I know what she'd say."

"...Yeah," I concede with a giggle as a waitress arrives to take my friends' orders.

After a quick lunch with my friends, I head home, and the rest of the evening is spent chatting with Chloe on Facebook, before we head to our (sadly separate) beds just after midnight. As I drift off to sleep, I can’t help but muse on how 2018 may have had its ups and downs, but I’ve emerged from it stronger than ever. I have a girl that I love, family who are gradually coming round, a gang of great friends, I have my independence; and most importantly, I have a piece of paper that says that as far as the law is concerned, I am 100% male.

As the next day dawns, however, I realise that I should’ve known better than to be optimistic about my future.

“Morning!” Lee says as I head into the living room and drop down on the sofa. “Told you no one’s ever hungover on the 2nd of January, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” I chuckle.

“This came for you in the post, by the way,” Lee says, handing me a white envelope. “Looks kinda important.”

“It’s probably a bank statement,” I shrug as I open the envelope and read the letter within. As I read it, however, my legs start to tremble and my hands slowly start to shake. Once I’ve reached the end of the page, I drop back down onto the sofa, a fine sheen of sweat quickly covering my whole body as I start to hyperventilate.

“Ian?” Lee asks with a look of concern on his face. “Mate, are you okay?” I feebly shake my head, prompting a frown from my friend as he picks up my discarded letter. Lee mumbles as he reads the letter, before coming to the line that caused my head to explode. “We are writing to inform you that Mr. Craig Walker has started legal proceedings against you and is claiming £22 000 in compensation!? Ian, wh- what the hell? Who’s Craig Walker?”

“…My father,” I say, before curling up in a foetal position and trying my hardest not to cry.

“He’s claiming for emotional distress, fraud…” Lee says as he reads down the letter. “Ian, can- can he do this?”

“I- I- oh, god…” I say, before finally breaking down in tears as Lee looks on awkwardly. “What the fu- just- just why is this happening!?”

“That- that’s a good question,” Lee says. “Ian, mate, I- I want to help, but I’m not a lawyer, do- does your family have a solicitor, someone they can call on?”

“No,” I sob into my knees.

“Maybe- maybe this is just, you know, a prank?” Lee says, before sighing as he examines the letter again. “Though this letter has a phone number and a website for the law firm dealing with it… Mate, you- you really should call someone. Maybe your grandmother, or Stuart, just- just someone.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” I wail. “Why couldn’t that bastard have just fucked off and died!?”

“Ian- Ian! Look at me,” Lee says firmly, making me look at him as tears continue to trickle down my cheeks. “This isn’t something you should just ignore. Give Stuart a call, or Jamie, or someone!”

“I- I don’t want to be a burden on them…” I meekly mumble.

“Mate, look at yourself,” Lee says in a much more serious tone than I’ve ever heard him use. “You’re in a right state. You’re not going to be able to deal with this by yourself. You NEED help. I can help where I can, but mate, I- I deal with robots. I’m totally clueless when it comes to legal things.”

“Stuart’s a musician and Jamie’s a model,” I moan. “What are they going to be able to do?”

“More than me!” Lee replies. “Mate, all your life, you’ve wanted to be a man. You need to deal with this. But- umm, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for help if you need it. That’s what friends are for. Give Stuart a call. Please.”

“…Okay,” I mumble, grabbing my phone from my dressing gown and dialling my mentor’s number.

“Hi Ian!” Stuart says, answering the phone after the second ring. “You’re up early today, is everything okay? …Ian?”

“I- I’m in trouble,” I mumble, trying my hardest not to cry again.

“What’s happened?” Stuart asks.

“It- it’s my- my dad,” I stammer. “He- ugh. He’s suing me.”

“Suing you!?” Stuart asks. “What the hell for?”

“Ugh, I dunno,” I moan. “Emotional distress, fraud-“

“Fraud!?” Stuart says, before letting out an angry sigh. “You’ve told me about your dad before, how he was a useless wimp…”

“Well, seems like he’s grown a pair,” I sigh. “Ugh, pun NOT intended.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Stuart sighs. “Mate, I’m at work all day today, I’m not going to be able to get away… Come down to Heavenly Talent. We’ll talk about it face-to-face, I’ll try to get some free time. DON’T panic about this. I know you, you haven’t done anything wrong, your dad’s just being a bully because- I dunno. Just come down to the HT office, I’ll call Jamie, see if she can come down as well. Nikki’s still in America otherwise I’d have called her too, I know she’s had some legal issues recently. Just- just come down to the office, mate. We’ll sort things out.”

“…Thanks,” I whisper, before ending the call.

“Well?” Lee asks.

“He wants to talk to me face to face,” I reply.

“Probably a good idea,” Lee says. “Do- d’you want any breakfast?”

“I’d probably just throw it up seconds after eating it,” I sigh. “I- I’m going to hit the shower, then I’m going to head straight out.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” Lee asks, smiling sympathetically as I shake my head.

“I’ll be okay,” I whisper.

“You’re sure?” Lee asks, making me pause- the answer to his question is obviously ‘no’, but I’ve burdened him enough this morning, and I know he still has coursework to do…

“I’m sure,” I say, heading to the shower before getting dressed in a very plain sweater and pair of old black jeans.

Not long afterwards, I’m on the tube heading into the centre of London, toward the head office of Heavenly Talent. My head is still spinning from the letter, how and why my father could sue me, and for such a large sum of money, too- growing up, he was barely a feature in my life, he was so busy with his work, or arguing with my mum, or cowering before my grandmother… The last time I even saw him, I punched him to the ground, something that no doubt contributed toward him deciding to sue me…

I replay the punch in my mind with every tube stop that my train passes, and as I do, I feel my anguish and distress slowly start to give way to another, more powerful emotion- anger. Anger toward the man who was not just emotionally distant but probably emotionally retarded all throughout my childhood. The man who would often go weeks without exchanging a single word with me, even when I lived in his home. How dare he! How dare he sue me for ‘emotional distress’ when throughout my childhood, I got more emotional support from a stuffed giraffe than I did from him! What gives him the right to influence my life in any way, shape or form, when for the first sixteen years of my life, I was little more than an ornament to him!?

I take several deep breaths to calm myself as I walk into the plush, modern reception area of Heavenly Talent, somewhere I’ve been before and that always caused me stress and anxiety thanks to the constant presence of my mother at the back of my mind. For today, however, I have to ignore that feeling, as hard as that might be.

“Hello, how can I help?” The young receptionist asks as I approach.

“Hi, I’m here to see Stuart Milton,” I say, frowning as the receptionist smiles sympathetically at me.

“I’m afraid Mr. Milton is booked out for the day,” the receptionist says, before frowning in confusion as I don't walk away.

“He’s expecting me,” I say. “He WILL see me. Tell him Ian Freeman is here.”

“O-kay…” The receptionist says, clearly taken aback by my firm attitude as she types into her computer. “…Mr. Milton will see you now, he’s in his studio, just through those doors on the left.”

“Thank you,” I say, before turning and walking purposefully through the marked double doors. I only get a few steps before I see my mentor poke his head out of a side door.

“Hey, man,” Stuart says, walking up and giving me a supportive pat on the arm. “How are you doing?”

“Dunno whether to cry, scream or punch a hole in the wall,” I reply, earning a sympathetic smile. “Ugh, I- I dunno. Nineteen years of neglect and now this? Does dad even think that I have 22 grand just lying around?”

“I dunno, mate,” Stuart says. “Do you have a lawyer, or a solicitor?”

“No,” I moan. “Doubt I could afford one, anyway…”

“Well, there-“ Stuart says, before pausing and grimacing.

“…What?” I ask.

“You won’t like it,” Stuart says in a low voice. “I know you won’t…”

“At this point I’m open to anything,” I say.

“Heavenly Talent retains the services of a London lawyer, a good one too,” Stuart says. “Her name is Janet Bean, and she mostly deals with things like copyright and licensing- like if Out of Heaven record any cover versions, that sort of thing- but she occasionally does things like this too.”

“Well, great!” I say. “Why wouldn’t I like that?”

“Because she only represents people signed to Heavenly Talent,” Stuart says with a sigh. “If you’re signed to the agency, or work backstage, like me, and you need her help, Joshua Benedict will cover all the fees. If you’re not, though, she’d be expensive. REALLY expensive.”

“I’m not signed to Heavenly Talent, though,” I remind my friend.

“But I know JB has offered you representation in the past,” Stuart whispers as I feel a familiar feeling grip my stomach and twist it into knots.

“But- but he wouldn’t sign me if I was only using him for his lawyer,” I stammer. “He- he’d-“

“He’d honour the offer he made you months ago,” Stuart says. “He’s a very generous, honourable man. A philanthropist, even, but- but not a charity. If you’re signed, he would expect you to work as well. But he’d absolutely get Janet Bean to help you out, and believe me, she’d trash this lawsuit with one hand tied behind her back.” I feel my breathing start to become shallow as I ponder the dilemma in front of me. On the one hand, I could try to fight dad’s lawsuit by myself, get tied up in legal issues for months, potentially trash my uni studies and even my life if I lose, but on the other hand, I could sign for Heavenly Talent, get this all sorted out for me and get decent paying part-time work too- all for the price of selling my soul, becoming the one thing I dreaded all throughout growing up, and proving that my mother was right all along…

“I- I need to think about this,” I say, my hands trembling with anxiety.

“Take all the time you need,” Stuart says. “Well- that said, you will kinda need to make a decision soon. Tell you what, my sister- my older sister, not the singer- she works in finance, but she knows a lot of London based lawyers, ones she went to university with. I’ll send her a message, see if she can recommend one you can afford on a student’s budget. Ian… Even if you win the lawsuit, this could well get expensive. And I think that’s what your bullying father wants.”

“I know,” I sigh. “And if it was just, you know, a few hundred quid, I’d let him win, but-“

“I know,” Stuart says sympathetically. “I- umm, I’ve kinda got to get back to work now, but I’ll message Emma when I can. And don’t forget about Joshua’s offer, I’m sure he’ll honour it. He hates bullies more than anyone I know, and if this ‘emotional distress’ bullshit is based on what I think it is…”

“Thanks,” I whisper.

“Call me any time you need to chat,” Stuart says. “And keep me updated about this. I don’t like people victimising my little brother.”

“Thanks,” I chuckle, before exchanging a gentle, but still manly hug with my ‘big brother’.

“Talk soon, mate,” Stuart says softly, before turning and returning to his recording studio.

As I head out of the office and back toward the tube station, I can’t help but muse that in my desperation to be away from my mother, I’d all but forgotten that my ‘father’ and his mother still lived in London. They were such an unimportant part of my life, one I thought I’d permanently cut out, like a tumour, that it never occurred to me that the ‘tumour’ could grow back. Still, at least London is also home to my REAL family- to Stuart, to Jamie, to Laura and all the other friends I’ve made over the last few years.

I arrive back home in a much calmer mood than when I left this morning- something that relieves Lee, at least- and as Stuart promised, a few hours later he sends a long Facebook message with details of local solicitors who might be able to help me out. I take a few minutes to ponder whether to call one of them, or to bite the bullet and take Joshua Benedict up on his implied offer, but in the end I make the call, and I spend almost an hour speaking to a junior solicitor, a young man named Ross, about the situation.

A few days later, I’m sitting in an office alongside Ross, dressed in my best suit, my smart black shoes polished, my face shaved clean and my usually scruffy hair combed to perfection. On the outside, I am the picture of professional poise and calm, but on the inside, all of my organs are dancing around my ribcage- a dance that intensifies as Craig Walker enters the room, accompanied by his lawyer-a much older and better-dressed lawyer than my own, I can’t help but notice.

“Good afternoon,” the old man says in a very deep received pronunciation accent. “Let me begin by introducing myself, my name is Richard Cahill, I shall be representing Mr. Walker in these discussions.”

“I’m Ross Michaels, I’ll be representing Mr. Freeman,” my solicitor says, and I can’t help but fidget at the angry look my father gives me at the mention of my real title and my real surname.

“We are suing for the recovery of lost earnings spent on activities throughout the defendant's childhood that the defendant willfully abandoned without consulting Mr. Walker. We are also suing for emotional distress caused by the defendant leaving the household without any prior warning, essentially abandoning Mr. Walker.

“Obviously, we will contest all of these points,” Ross says. “Particularly the ‘emotional distress’ claim. As I’m sure you’re aware, gender identity is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act and not legally actionable.” All throughout Ross’s reply, I keep my eyes fixed on my ‘father’, who grows angrier and angrier with every word my solicitor says.

“We know,” Richard replies. “That’s why we’re not suing on those grounds.”

“Then what exactly is it I’m supposed to have done?” I blurt out, my anger levels rising to match Craig's. “How am I supposed to have ‘emotionally distressed’ you?”

“YOU KILLED YOUR GRANDMOTHER, YOU LITTLE SHIT!” Craig bellows, making me freeze in my chair. I’ve heard him shout at mum several times in the past, but he’s never been THIS angry...

“I- I’m sorry?” I ask in a meek voice.

“You should be,” Craig growls. “Your grandmother, my mother, the greatest mother who ever lived, died on the 5th of December. Though of course you wouldn’t know that, because you’re too selfish to care! The doctors said she died of a heart attack, but what she really died of was a broken heart- broken because of your selfishness!” I sit back in stunned silence as my father rants, stunned as I have difficulty believing that we're talking about the same woman.

“Craig,” Richard says, temporarily pacifying the angry man before turning back to face my solicitor. “Your client’s actions can be shown to be a direct cause of my client’s mother passing away. If your client had not abandoned Mr. Walker, it would not have distressed his mother to the extent that she passed away, and Mr. Walker would therefore not have suffered emotional distress as a result." My jaw drops open as I try to process what I'm being told- I'm somehow responsible for the death of a woman I've had hardly any contact with in over two years and who had pre-existing health conditions? I take several deep breaths to convince myself that this isn't some kind of sick twisted nightmare, and that this is actually happening...

"I'm going to need to consult with my client," Ross says in a quiet, hesitant voice- obviously, he's as baffled as I am. I hope he is, anyway...

"We'll be right outside," Richard says, escorting my father- whose eyes stay fixed on me the whole way- out of the room. Whatever Ross thinks about the lawsuit, my father's obviously taking it VERY seriously...

Once the door is shut, though, my solicitor lets out a long sigh and turns to face me.

"...This lawsuit is bogus," Ross says bluntly. "Cahill knows that. Hell, even your father might, on some level. I'm convinced he's doing this out of malice, or spite, and there we have an edge. Malicious prosecution IS grounds for a countersuit." My heart rate slows down for the first time since entering the building, though I know a certain three-letter word is coming... "But."

"I knew there was going to be a 'but'," I sigh.

"It's not going to be a quick process," Ross says. "Cahill works for a VERY rich law firm that have a lot of resources that they can spare to prosecute this nonsense, and that's what I think your dad's aim is. I'm guessing he's friends with Cahill or someone else at the firm, or they owe him for business, or something, I dunno. But if we're going to win this countersuit, we're first going to have to negotiate a mountain of legal red tape. And it's going to take time. Lots of time. And you will need to face interviews, depositions... I doubt it'll ever go before a judge, but-"

"But be prepared for my life to suck for the next few months," I moan.

"I can't make this go away quickly," Ross sighs. "Not if we want to win this countersuit as well." Why are you so focussed on the revenge when we haven't even dealt with the first lawsuit yet? I think to myself.

"What if I don't counter-sue?" I ask.

"Ian, do you want to let your father get away with bullying you?" Ross asks, smiling sympathetically as I'm forced to shake my head. "The only way we can win is by counter-suing. But-"

"That word again," I sigh.

"Malicious prosecution is something not easy to prove," Ross says. "That might even take more time than getting rid of this lawsuit."

"Is there any way to just get rid of this quickly?" I ask. "Ugh, never mind, I know what the answer will be..."

"Yep," Ross sighs. "The only way out is to cough up the 22 grand. Even if we try to settle for a lower amount, even a pound lower they'll send in an army of lawyers. And we won't get to counter-sue either, because we've admitted liability."

"So my only options are a 22 grand debt, or months of my life being shit?" I ask.

"I'm afraid so," Ross says as I slump back into my chair. Just when I thought my life might be looking positive, just when I was finally gaining control of my anxieties, the universe comes up and kicks me in a part of the anatomy that I'm even allowed to possess yet. Am I ever going to have a stress-free existence?

“Thank GOD,” Mac says in an over-dramatic way as he, Ben and I head out of our college, all three of us tired after a long week, but excited at the knowledge we have the next three weeks completely university-free.

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Ben chuckles.

“Oh come on,” I protest. “It hasn’t been THAT bad, has it?”

“So you’re telling me you’d rather have another 3 weeks of classes than 3 weeks of holiday, then?” Ben asks, making me grin slyly.

“…HELL no,” I reply, sharing a laugh with my friends as we walk through the warm Spring air. I do my best make the most of the good feeling while it lasts, though- over the last few months, it's become increasingly rare.

Three months have passed since my father ruined my life- or rather, the most recent time that my father ruined my life. In that time, I’ve completed half a semester of university work, celebrated my girlfriend’s 18th birthday (and Valentine’s Day), celebrated Ben’s 19th birthday and the birthdays of four other members of the Fellowship. I’ve watched Arsenal play twice, once against Chelsea and once against Man United (both matches ending 2-0 to my beloved Gunners), finished two videogames (Resident Evil 2 and Kingdom Hearts 3, both of which I loved), taken about 20 bass lessons with Mikey and/or Stuart, watched the trailer for Avengers Endgame about 200 times and made absolutely no progress toward resolving the lawsuit.

I’ve met with Ross- my solicitor- plenty of times since the New Year, with each meeting going exactly the same way. He tells me there’s been no progress, advises how much money I’m going to make from the eventual countersuit, and I go away feeling even more stressed with my so-called father’s lawsuit still hanging over my head. Stuart has advised that I can always sign for Joshua Benedict and make use of his retained lawyer to make the lawsuit go away quickly and without any fuss, and Joshua Benedict himself has even confirmed this, but the thought of that just makes me even more stressed- and more stress is the absolute last thing I need right now.

Of course, I can put all this stress to the back of my mind (well, I can try, anyway) for the next few weeks, as university has officially finished for the Easter holidays. I’ll still be busy with coursework, of course (pun not intended), but I’ll at least be able to relax, not have to deal with crowds or deadlines, and live life on my own schedule. I’ll be going back to Cardiff for Easter itself, but that’ll only be a few days of having to deal with my mother- especially as the bulk of my time there won’t be spent with her.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the highlights of the start of the year was Chloe’s eighteenth birthday, and now that she’s eighteen, her parents are finally treating her like her own person and not like a 5-year-old girl. She’s already visited London once for her interview at the London College of Fashion (who have offered her a conditional place, to the delight of both of us), and she’ll be visiting tomorrow for a few days so I can show her around London and she can help me ‘relieve my stress’. My friends have been helping with my stress as well, of course, but they can’t help in the way that Chloe can!

That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate their friendship, of course. In addition to my guitar lessons, I (and occasionally Lee too) have been to the occasional games night with Stuart and his friends and have even been on a couple of nights out with them. However, it’s the nights in with Lee, Ben and Mac that I’ve treasured the most, whether we’re playing videogames, board games or just chilling out watching a movie. On those nights, I can forget all about my stress, and forget all about the fact that for over sixteen years, as far as the law (and my parents) was concerned, my name was Kayleigh-Ann and I was a girl. Today, though, I am indisputably one of the guys, and this feeling of conditional acceptance may be the greatest gift I have ever received.

However, on our games nights, it’s rarely just the four of us. Dan Young- or as Mac calls him, ‘Sheldon’- usually shows up as well. Despite his best efforts, Lee is still struggling to make friends at university, and Dan has a very hard time taking no for an answer, so on games nights, we’re a fivesome. Fortunately, Dan at least unconditionally accepts me as one of the guys, though his idea of what a ‘guy’ should be is very different than mine. If I even mention my friendship to the Angels’ partners, or style my hair differently, or even wear a t-shirt or jumper with a designer logo on it instead of a Star Wars logo, I get labelled ‘Joey Essex’ and/or asked when I’m going to be on Love Island. One consolation is that the other guys, especially Mac, get as much shit from him as I do, but that doesn’t stop me from getting the regular urge to punch him. Sometimes I even wonder whether or not I’d have taken Joshua Benedict up on his offer if it wasn’t for Dan…

Fortunately, he spends most of his time with us trying to come with a ‘team name’ for the five of us, after he realised that all five of us have names or nicknames that are three letters long. As his current best effort is ‘Le Dice Bananamen’, it will hopefully keep him occupied for a while yet. Even if I can’t really call myself a ‘banana man’- not yet, anyway…

“Evening,” Lee says as I walk through the front door of our flat and flop down heavily on our sofa.

“Hey,” I reply. “You’re back earlier than usual?”

“No afternoon lecture ‘cause it’s the end of term,” Lee explains. “They said to use the afternoon for reading and coursework, and I can do that just as easily at home.”

“’Home’ meaning here or Cardiff?” I ask as I spot Lee’s packed suitcase out of the corner of my eye.

“…Both,” Lee replies with a shrug. “Figured I’d head back early tomorrow, give you some room. By which I mean ‘give you and Chloe some room’!”

“I do appreciate that,” I reply with a grin. “And yes, I owe you one.”

“Pity you don’t still work at GAME, you could’ve repaid me out of your staff discount,” Lee says, making me snort with laughter. “Speaking of which, when are the guys coming around?”

“Umm, around 7, I think,” I reply, before trying not to frown. “Is Dan coming around too?”

“Yep,” Lee replies in a stoic voice. “Try to be nice, okay?”

“I will if he will,” I snort. “I mean, yes, I know he’s your friend, but he’s a grade-A dick, you know?”

“Well, he’s helping me to get an A,” Lee replies. “Or a first, or whatever you want to call it now. But- well, yeah, I’ll tell him to tone it down a bit.”

“Thanks,” I say as I open the Deliveroo app on my phone. “Want anything specific for dinner or shall I just get a pick and mix again?”

“Pick and mix sounds great,” Lee replies as I start placing our order, only to be immediately interrupted by an incoming Facebook message- a message that instantly makes me forget all about dinner.

‘Hey you,’ Chloe types, instantly bringing a wide grin to my face.

‘Hey me,’ I reply, giggling at the ‘rolling eyes’ emoji my girlfriend sends in reply. “How’ve you been?’

‘REALLY missing you,’ Chloe types. ‘Can’t wait for tomorrow!’

‘Me too,’ I type. ‘For both things!’

‘You’d better be,’ Chloe types with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji that makes me smirk.

‘I’m looking forward to September more,’ I type.

‘God, me too,’ Chloe replies. ‘Gonna be weird not being at home and I know Hannah and Rosie will be jealous, which will make it even more fun!’

‘Lol,’ I type, reacting to both Chloe’s message and the ‘devil’ emoji she followed it with.

‘Rosie’ll be especially jealous of all the Angel parties we go to!’ Chloe types, making me roll my eyes even as I reply with a ‘smiling’ emoji. As much as I adore Chloe, sometimes I can’t help but wonder whether her excitement at coming to London is because of me or my contacts…

‘Also can’t wait to see your friends again tomorrow,’ Chloe types.

‘Umm, I think Stuart and Jamie are busy all tomorrow?’ I ask, confused by my girlfriend’s statement. ‘I know I’ve not made any plans with them, anyway.’

‘Not them, silly, your uni friends!’ Chloe types with a ‘giggling’ emoji that makes me roll my eyes but also breathe a sigh of relief and momentarily forget about my aforementioned stress about Chloe’s love of me or my contacts. And needless to say, you can trace this stress right back to my mother and the first sixteen years of my life.

‘Rosie will be less jealous about you seeing them again,’ I tease along with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji.

‘Lol,’ Chloe types with a ‘rolling eyes’ emoji. ‘Figure I should get to know them now if we’re going to be spending all our free time with them come September!’ Chloe’s ‘winking’ emoji makes me chuckle as I fantasise about September, being able to spend as much time with Chloe as I want, and whenever I want- though I can’t help but worry at how well Chloe and Dan will get along…

Chloe and I chat for another half an hour until Lee reminds me that I’m meant to be ordering our dinner, and with Chloe also being called down to dinner by her parents we say our goodbyes and log out of Facebook. As always, chatting with Chloe has taken my mind off my anxieties, and while it's a brief respite, it's still one I'm more than grateful for. If this lawsuit drags on until September, I’ve a feeling I'll be needing Chloe more and more.

Our friends arrive for our games night a short while later, closely followed by our food, and before long we’re relaxing in a pile of empty food containers and beer and soft drink bottles, game controllers in hand.

“Rocket League split screen next, then?” Mac asks as we finish our FIFA mini tournament.

“Yep, sounds good,” Lee replies as he selects the game on our PlayStation 4’s menu. “Quick reminder that while I’m back in Wales, you four are not to-“

“Yes, yes, we know,” I sigh. “Don’t touch your PlayStation Network account.”

“You’ve told us three times tonight already,” Mac sighs. “Chill out, for god's sake!”

“Why are you so stressed out, anyway?” Ben asks. “Not looking forward to going back to Wales?”

“Meh, a little,” Lee shrugs. “I mean, I’ll have a lot more space back home to work on my projects, but-“ I bite my lip as Lee glances in my direction- I know what’s been getting him down recently better than anyone else, and in truth, it’s made me a little depressed as well, even if I am relieved that I won't get any 'screen time' this year.

“…Girlfriend problems,” I explain, laughing as Lee angrily hurls a packet of crisps at my head. “Well- sort of, anyway. It was this time last year that we were recording Robot Wars.”

“Ah, right,” Ben says. “And because the BBC have cancelled the show-“

“Months of work down the drain,” Lee sighs. “I mean, there’s always the competitive circuit-“

“Which is a more legitimate competition anyway,” Dan interrupts, earning a dark look from all of us, Lee included, to my surprise.

“…We got so close last time,” Lee sighs as I bit my lip again- even though he’s gone to great lengths not to say, I’m sure he at least partly blames the team’s elimination from the tournament on my walking out on the recording.

“I know Chloe was gutted too when she heard that the show was cancelled,” I interject, before sighing as Lee, Mac and Ben playfully jeer at me.

“Humble girlfriend brag,” Mac says, making me roll my eyes. "Minus the 'humble'."

“For what it’s worth, she is looking forward to seeing you all again tomorrow,” I say. “God knows why.”

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing her too,” Mac says, before fidgeting as I shoot a dirty look at him. “…Okay, fair enough, girlfriend is even more off-limits than a PSN account, I get it.”

“I’m having a hard time thinking of anything LESS off-limits than a girlfriend,” Ben muses.

“A man’s robot?” I tease my flat mate, who responds with more projectile snacks. “When they’re not the same thing, anyway…” I laugh as the jeers turn back in Lee’s direction, who simply sighs and shrugs them off as his team of cars prepares to do battle with Mac’s.

The rest of the evening passes noisily with all of us- Dan included- having a great time. All throughout the evening, though, I can’t help but worry about how well Chloe will fit in with the group- four noisy boys and one Dan is about as far from her 'thing' as it's possible to get, though the same could possibly be said of most girls. It certainly couldn't be said of me, though- because I am absolutely, positively NOT a girl.

I’m woken up the following morning by my phone alerting me to an incoming Facebook message, which I initially dismiss in my hungover state, only to sigh and roll over when two more messages follow in quick succession. When I see who the messages are from, though, my hangover quickly fades away.

‘Hey you!’ Chloe’s first message reads. ‘I’m getting on the train now, should be with you in a couple of hours.’

‘I’ll be there,’ I reply with a ‘kissing’ emoji that Chloe immediately reciprocates. ‘Lee’s giving us a lift before he heads back home, it’ll save money on taxis and the tube.’

‘As long as I sit in the front,’ Chloe types. ‘I’m wearing one of my shortest skirts so I can do without flashing the whole of London climbing into the back!’

‘Don’t need to ask if you brought me a present, then?’ I type with a ‘grinning’ emoji.

‘Don’t need to ask if you’re looking forward to unwrapping your present?’ Chloe retorts with a ‘winking’ emoji that makes me giggle excitedly.

‘Counting down the milliseconds already,’ I reply as I take several deep breaths to shake off the last of my hangover before jumping out of bed. ‘G2G now, breakfast then a shower.’

‘You’d better be wearing your sexy deodorant when you pick me up,’ Chloe types, to which I reply with another ‘grinning’ emoji. ‘Love you!’

‘Love you too,’ I type as I toss my phone onto my bed and head through to the kitchen, pausing as I pass my flat mate’s bedroom door.

“Hey!” I yell, knocking loudly on Lee’s door and smirking at the pained groans that come from the other side. “Get up! Chloe’ll be here soon!”

“I fucking hate you,” Lee moans, making me smirk. “I’ll be up in a bit, put some coffee on. A LOT of coffee. Like, hook it up to a petrol pump, that sort of thing. Ugh, reminds me, I’ll need to stop for petrol before we pick Chloe up too…”

“Looking forward to getting back home, then?” I ask.

“Not looking forward to the drive,” Lee replies as he opens the door to reveal his dishevelled, unshaved state. “But I’ll be happier when I’m there, yep. That reminds me- in addition to my PSN account, you and Chloe are not to go anywhere near my bed, okay?”

“Ugh- like we would?” I retort, chuckling as my flat mate gives me a playful shove en route to the shower.

A short while later, after both of us have been fully caffeinated, we pull into the car park of Paddington station and make our way to the station concourse, where we’re not waiting long before a beautiful, petite flame-haired girl comes running toward us, one arm dragging her travel case while the other arm is open for a hug I am only too happy to give her.

“Hey you!” I say happily, before exchanging a kiss with Chloe.

“Hey me!” My girlfriend teasingly replies, before giving a looser, more friendly hug to Lee. “And hey you! Hope you’ve been keeping Ian out of trouble?”

“Yeah, like that’s possible,” Lee chuckles, making me roll my eyes as Chloe releases the hug and grips my hand tightly. “I’ll drop you back home but then I really need to get going. I don’t need to ask if you have any plans for today, do I?”

“Just, you know… Catching up,” Chloe replies with a devilish grin that makes my heart beat faster.

“I really REALLY need to get going, then,” Lee says as we head out to his car and climb in (with me letting Chloe take the front passenger seat, as promised). “How long are you in London for, anyway?”

“Only until Monday,” Chloe sighs. “But that just means we have the whole weekend to ourselves, hehe!” I share a glance with my girlfriend and share the wide grin that spreads across her face.

“We are going to see a bit more of London, too,” I say. “I figure I lived here for nearly fifteen years, that makes me qualified to be a tour guide, right?”

“I’m really looking forward to seeing Big Ben, I am,” Chloe says excitedly.

“What little you can see of it through the scaffolding, anyway,” Lee says.

“Well- I’ll have three years to see it, starting in September!” Chloe giggles. “When I’m not too busy with uni work. And parties!”

“And me,” I remind my girlfriend.

“Who d’you think’s going to come all of those parties with me?” Chloe asks, making me giggle, even as I cringe a little internally- I’ve spent my whole life being told what to do and how to do it, so when it happens now, it can be a little grating. Fortunately, I know for a fact that Chloe is NOT my mother, father, grandmother or any other member of the family. She adores me, just as I adore her. I just wish it didn’t annoy me so much…

Lee drops us off a short while later before immediately driving off, leaving the two of us by ourselves. It isn't long before the two of us have stripped each other naked and retreated to my bedroom...

“I have REALLY missed you,” I say, taking several deep breaths as the two of us lay in my sweat-soaked sheets.

“Believe me, I’ve missed you more,” Chloe says, before sighing and smiling at me. “…And this is the part where you usually apologise, and I have to reassure you that I really, genuinely don’t mind that you’re not ‘built’ like most other men.”

“I wasn’t going to apologise,” I protest, before sighing. “Out loud, anyway…”

“Exactly,” Chloe says. “I wouldn’t have travelled 150 miles to be here if the sex wasn’t good, would I?”

“Yeah, well, I guess ‘insecurity’ is just a major part of who I am, heh,” I sigh as I lay back in bed. “Can’t imagine why… Sorry for- well, feeling sorry for myself, especially after we’ve just-“

“With everything that’s happened to you over the last few months, you’re entitled to feel a little sorry for yourself,” Chloe whispers reassuringly. “That’s part of why I’m here- who better to take your mind off of things than the best girlfriend in the world?”

“I agree with you 100%,” I say, even if I’m a little annoyed that Chloe’s brought my anxiety levels up. “And I would suggest a way you can take my mind off of it again, though I think it may be a while before I’m up to even walking, heh.”

“That’s okay,” Chloe shrugs, giving me a kiss before sliding out of bed and putting her bra and panties back on. “You just lay back and leave everything to me until you get your strength back.”

“Umm, you really don’t need to do that?” I say. “I mean, you ARE a guest in my flat, and-“

“And no more words,” Chloe interrupts, silencing me with a gentle kiss. “It really is the least I can do. You’ve put up with enough shit in the last few months to last most people a lifetime. Not to mention everything you dealt with before that, heh. You’ve earned this Easter holiday just as much as anyone has. And most importantly of all… I’m your girlfriend, and you’re my MAN.” Despite my tiredness, I still grin as Chloe gently caresses my chest- my flat, bare, masculine chest, unencumbered by the soft, heavy mounds that used to be there.

“…I love you,” I whisper, earning a smile and a kiss from my girlfriend.

“I love you too,” Chloe whispers, before pulling her skirt and top back on and heading out of the room, returning a few minutes later with two mugs of hot tea and our small, portable radio.

Chloe and I spend the next hour in bed, simply listening to music, holding each other close and, in my case at least, wishing that the moment would never end. As much as I enjoyed the sex, oddly enough it’s this simple act that does a much better job of taking my mind off of my stresses. I don’t have to be ‘careful’ when I’m with Chloe, I don’t have to make sure I act a particular way, a way that’s expected of me- I can simply be myself, which is the best gift anyone could ever give me.

However, another wonderful gift is the gift of friendship, as I’m reminded when my phone bleeps to inform me of a new Facebook message from Mac, letting me know that he, Ben and Dan are on their way over for our planned day of gaming. Fifteen minutes later- after I’ve had the chance to pull my clothes back on- the three guys arrive, Mac leading the other two in and greeting me with a handshake before giving Chloe a gentle hug that (from my perspective, anyway) lasts FAR too long.

“Hey guys!” Mac chuckles. “Thanks for putting your clothes back on… Ian!”

“Funny man,” I say stoically as Chloe giggles.

“I won’t ask what you’ve been doing all morning, then,” Ben jokes as he places a large bag of refreshments on our coffee table, including several cans of beer. “Sure you want to spend your limited time in London shut in with us rather than exploring the city?”

“Meh, maybe,” Chloe shrugs. “As long as I’m with Ian, it doesn’t matter where we are, hehe!”

“Good answer,” I say smugly, earning an eye roll from my girlfriend.

“And this way, I get to hang out with you guys too!” Chloe says. “Besides, I’ll be down here in the summer, when it’ll be warmer, so I can always explore then.”

“Chloe really wants to see Big Ben,” I explain.

“So you want to climb up the inside of the tower and look at the bell?” Dan asks, making me internally sigh. “I assume you know that Big Ben is the bell inside the clock tower, and that the clock tower itself is called the Elizabeth Tower?”

“You must be Dan,” Chloe says, making the rest of us giggle. “I’m Chloe, I don’t believe we’ve met yet?”

“Ydw, Dan ydw i. Mae'n braf i gwrdd â chi,” Dan replies, earning confused looks from myself, Ben and Mac and an eye roll from Chloe.

“You REALLY must be Dan,” Chloe says as the five of us sit down.

“Did you just have a stroke or something?” Ben asks Dan, which earns him a slap on the arm from my girlfriend.

“He was speaking Welsh,” Chloe explains.

“I didn’t know you understood Welsh,” I say.

“I did it as a second language at GCSE,” Chloe shrugs. “Only got a 6, though. Obviously, you didn’t have that option ‘cause you went to school in England.”

“O-kay…” I say, suddenly feeling very uneasy.

“Why is it such a big deal that I speak Welsh?” Chloe giggles. “Some Welsh, anyway?”

“It’s not,” I protest. “It just, you know, came as a bit of a surprise, that’s all.”

“I could always teach you some Welsh, if you’d like?” Dan offers, making me scowl- which deepens when Chloe giggles at Dan’s unintended joke.

“Oh sure,” Ben snorts. “’Cause THAT’s not cultural appropriation? Maybe next you’d like to teach me Hebrew?”

“If you’d like?” Dan asks, oblivious to Ben’s sarcasm.

“…Actually, I’m thinking maybe we should head out after all?” I suggest. “Get some fresh air, rather than spend all day cooped up inside?”

“Suits me,” Mac replies with a shrug. “After lunch, though, and it should really be Chloe’s decision- she is the guest of honour, after all.”

“Thank you,” Chloe says with a smug grin. “Maybe it WOULD be a good idea to go out after lunch, hehe!”

“Well, that’s three votes for,” Mac declares, earning cheers from all of us (with the obvious exception of Dan). However, I can’t help but fidget at the sight of the smile that Chloe and Mac exchange…

After a quick Deliveroo lunch and an even quicker gaming session, the five of us put our coats on and head to the nearest tube station, and soon we emerge from Charing Cross station. A smile quickly spreads across my face as we walk down Whitehall, especially because of the awestruck look on my girlfriend's face- and the tight grip she has on my hand.

“Okay,” my girlfriend giggles excitedly. “THIS is cool, hehe!”

“Really?” Mac chuckles. “Downing Street is about as UNcool as it’s possible to get, heh.”

“Meh, it’s still a landmark, isn’t it?” Chloe asks, before releasing my hand and posing in front of the main gate. “Come on, take my photo, someone!” I smile as I take my phone out of my pocket and snap a photo of my girlfriend, but much to my chagrin, so does Mac. Jealousy is another form of stress I really don't need right now. Fortunately, an idea quickly springs to mind that hopefully should ease that nasty feeling a little.

“Hey Mac, get a photo of the two of us!” I say as I stand next to Chloe and wrap an arm around her tiny waist.

“Umm, okay!” Mac chuckles as he takes our picture, my smile widening as I feel Chloe slip a stealth hand into the rear pocket of my jeans.

“Big Ben next?” ‘Our’ Ben asks, making the four of us laugh as Dan rolls his eyes and sighs.

“Yep, sounds great!” Chloe giggles, once again linking her fingers with mine as we continue down Whitehall toward the Palace of Westminster.

After a good two hours of exploring the city, including having our photo taken in front of Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, Ben, Mac, Chloe and I head toward a nearby pub for refreshment, while Dan thankfully heads back home, but not before stating in great detail exactly why he doesn’t like pubs. It’s obvious though that Chloe has thoroughly enjoyed today, and it's also obvious that a major reason for that is that she got to spend the day with me. However, every time I see Mac looking at my girlfriend- and even worse, vice versa- that nasty jealous feeling starts to bubble up again. I know I’m being irrational, but what with everything that’s happened to me over the past few months, I wouldn’t put it past the universe to mess with my relationship with Chloe as well. With that in mind, when Mac gets up to use the toilet shortly before we leave the pub, I follow him, determined to put an end to the situation before it gets out of hand.

“Oh, hey mate,” Mac says as he makes use of one of the urinals. “You do know that going to the toilet together is kinda a ‘not-male’ thing, right?”

“Funny man,” I say as I head to one of the cubicles, grateful that the toilet block is otherwise empty.

“And you can’t use a urinal yet, then?” Mac asks.

“Okay, getting VERY close to crossing a line,” I caution my tall friend.

“Oh- jeez, sorry, I was just asking…” Mac protests. “Didn’t mean anything by it, like.”

“Speaking of ‘crossing lines’ and ‘not meaning anything’,” I say, taking a deep breath to compose myself before continuing- it’s not like I want to fight with Mac, after all, and he IS a friend, but still… “Keep your hands off Chloe.”

“Oh- what?” Mac says with a snort of laughter. “Mate, you’re being paranoid.”

“Am I?” I ask. “Can you honestly say that you DON’T fancy Chloe?”

“Thanks a lot,” Mac snorts. “Ask the one question that doesn’t have a right answer. That has GOT to violate the bro code somehow. I mean, really, what do you want me to say to that?”

“The truth,” I reply, biting my lip as I ponder whether or not Mac is right, whether this is the question that men shouldn’t ask each other- well, normal men, anyway, and the fact of the matter is that whether I like it or not, I am very, very far from being a ‘normal’ man. However, this doesn’t mean I’m no less a man just because I live my life on my terms…

“…Okay, I think she’s cute,” Mac replies. “But I’m not going to do anything mate, honestly! Nicking someone’s girlfriend is, like, the biggest violation of the bro code there is.”

“…But am I real ‘bro’, though?” I ask, fidgeting on my seat as I ask the question that has plagued me for almost three years.

“Yes,” Mac replies without any hesitation. “Yes, you are a bro. And on THAT, I guess you are at least entitled to feel a little insecure, even though you really, really shouldn’t.”

“Well- thanks,” I sigh as I flush the toilet and head out to wash my hands. “And I- I’m sorry, I guess. Ugh, after three years you’d think I’d have the whole ‘guy’ thing figured out.”

“Really?” Mac asks. “I’ve been at it twenty years and I still fuck up sometimes.”

“Well- I guess,” I shrug.

“Flirting with another guy’s girl is just another fuck up in a long string of them,” Mac admits. “I’ll back off mate, I- honestly, I didn’t realise I was doing it, I- heh. I’ll find another girl. A different one.”

“Good,” I say, smirking as Mac rolls his eyes.

“Though I still reckon you’re being over-paranoid,” Mac says. “Just my opinion, but if I had a psycho dad who was suing me for- well, you know, I’d probably be a bit paranoid too, heh.”

“Well, I’m going to get my money’s worth out of my counsellor this week,” I sigh. “Though ironically THAT is paid for by my dad via the divorce settlement with my mum, heh. Looking forward to him suing to get THAT money back.”

“Umm, I’m pretty sure he can’t if it was a divorce settlement,” Mac says as we head back to our table. “Don’t those have to go through the courts anyway?”

“Hey you two,” Chloe says, greeting me with a long, loving kiss as I sit down next to her. “What were you two talking about?”

“Your boyfriend’s massive paranoia,” Mac replies, making Chloe giggle and me sigh. “What’ve you two got planned for the rest of the night, then?”

“Never you mind that!” Chloe replies with a devilish smirk that sends a tingle through my body. “What are you two doing, hanging out with Dan tonight?”

“Ugh, GOD no!” Ben snorts.

“I mean, I don’t want to hate the guy, but…” Mac sighs.

“Meh, so he’s a bit full-on,” Chloe shrugs. “Kinda reminds me a bit of Lee when I first met him. You guys like him, right?” I can’t help but smirk as Mac flashes me a look as if to say ‘twice in five minutes?’.

“Yeah, Lee’s cool,” Ben shrugs. “Ehh, I dunno. So Dan’s a bit odd, he’ll mature eventually. Maybe.”

“And if you think Dan’s odd, you should try hanging out with my sister some time,” Chloe snorts. “Aka ‘princess of the bloody universe’.”

“Which one, Hannah or Rosie?” I ask, earning a smirk from my girlfriend.

“Both,” Chloe confirms. “But especially Hannah, my older sister.”

“Ah, okay,” Mac says, before smirking himself. “Is she single?” Despite my earlier paranoia, I can’t help but laugh as Chloe gives Mac a gentle punch in his arm.

We stay at the pub for another half an hour before heading back to our respective homes, Chloe not removing her hand from my back pocket throughout the entire tube ride home. Once we’re home, I reluctantly remove my girlfriend’s hands from my jeans before heading into the kitchen and putting the kettle on. Much to my surprise, though, Chloe’s hand returns moments later, this time around my waist.

“Hey,” Chloe whispers as she rests her head on my arm.

“Hey,” I reply with a smile. “Did you enjoy today?”

“It was AMAZING,” Chloe gushes. “And I do like your friends too. Well, some of them anyway, hehe!”

“Meh, Dan will grow on you,” I shrug. “And he’s the only friend I think Lee’s made on his course so, well- yeah.”

“I guess,” Chloe shrugs. “Maybe I will grow to like him. But- but that’s all I’ll do- ‘like’ him.”

“Umm… Okay?” I ask, confused by Chloe’s need to be specific.

“I, umm, I- I kinda overheard your argument with Mac,” Chloe says, making my stomach churn. “I went to get some money out of the cashpoint while you two were in the toilet and I heard you two… Heh. And I thought it was just girls who argued in the toilets, heh.”

“Not really helping,” I mumble, making my girlfriend frown.

“Ehh, sorry…” Chloe grimaces. “But- but the point I’m trying to make is- well, you don’t need to worry. About me. At all. Ever. I. Love. YOU. Not Mac, not Lee or Ben and- ugh, DEFINITELY not Dan. Same goes for anyone I might meet at uni next year. So how about you forget about all this paranoia thing, and let me help you take your mind off things?”

“…Did you have a particular, you know, way in mind?” I ask. “To help me take my mind off things?” Chloe grins smugly as her hands move away from my waist, and within minutes, the kettle isn’t the only thing that’s boiling…

We spend the rest of the evening cuddled together on the sofa watching television before heading to bed just after 11pm- though it is a long time before either of us get any sleep.

Chloe is still cuddled close to me the following morning when I’m awoken by the sound of banging outside- and it takes a few seconds for my tired brain to realise that the banging is coming from our front door.

“Who’s calling round at this time on a Sunday morning?” I grunt as I gently unwrap Chloe from around me and pull on a pair of boxer shorts and my dressing gown. “I don’t remember ordering anything from Amazon…” When I open the front door, though, I’m greeted by the last group of faces I was expecting.

“Hi Ian!” Abbey-Gayle says with a wide grin that’s matched by Brooke and Georgie, who are standing either side of her. “Oh, sorry- is it, like a bit early for you?”

“Umm, no, it’s okay,” I reply, confused by the presence of the three women on my doorstep. “Umm, come- come on in…”

“Thanks!” Abbey-Gayle says as she leads the girls into our living room, all three of them plopping down on our sofa.

“Do you want anything to drink?” I ask as I repeatedly try (and fail) to reconcile this scenario in my mind. I’ve barely even seen any of these girls in the last three years, and when I did, it was only because I was hanging out with their boyfriends, or with Jamie and Stuart. I have to blink several times to reassure myself that I’m not dreaming- and I have to scratch my chest a few times as well to confirm that what was there previously is really gone…

“Nah thanks, we ain’t stopping long,” Abbey-Gayle replies. “We’s visiting a lot of people today and, like, thought you oughta be the first we invite!”

“Invite to what?” I ask, my brain still foggy from the early hour, not helped my friends’ enthusiasm.

“To me birthday, of course!” Abbey-Gayle replied. “Next Sunday, the fourteenth? I’m turning twenty-one and, like, I want all me friends there. ALL me friends.”

“And, well, that includes you!” Brooke says with a grin.

“I- well, umm, it may have included ‘Kayleigh-Ann’,” I mumble. “But, you know, we- we haven’t hung out in years…”

“Don’t mean you ain’t me friend,” Abbey-Gayle says softly. “I mean, I kinda miss it when it was the five of us, like, and, you know, Ella ain’t flying round the world for it, but you lives in London now, so I thought, you know, maybe?”

“The boys will all be there too,” Brooke says. “So it’s not like we’re expecting, like, a proper reunion. We’d never ask you to be ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ ever again.”

“Yeah,” Abbey-Gayle confirms. “It’s only ‘Ian’ I want at me party.” Before I can open my mouth to reply, my bedroom door opens and Chloe walks out, a look of utter confusion on her face.

“Ian?” Chloe asks with a frown as she surveys what is, admittedly a suspicious scene- me in my underwear and a dressing gown on one side, and three attractive young women on the other side. “What- what’s going on?”

“Ah- yeah,” I say with a grimace. “Girls, you've met Chloe before, right?“

"Of course!" Abbey-Gayle says with a grin. “I’d, you know, give you a hug or something but, well, you is kinda naked…” I bite my lip to keep myself from giggling as Chloe suddenly realises that she’s stood in front of a bona fide Angel wearing only a sheet.

“Umm… Be right back!” Chloe says as she hurries back into the bedroom.

“She’s still cute,” Brooke says with a grin.

“Yeah, I definitely think so,” I say with a smile of my own.

“So obviously, like, she can come too,” Abbey-Gayle says with a grin. “As, you know, a plus one, sort of thing.”

“Well- I’d have to ask her first,” I muse, even though I can safely guess what the answer’s likely to be. “You, umm, sure you don’t want anything to drink?”

“Nah, we’d better get going now anyways,” Abbey-Gayle said, standing up and handing me a carefully written envelope- no doubt the actual invitation to the party. “I know, I know, I coulda done this all online, but, like, I wanted to do it personal, you know? Well, that and it was great hanging out again even if it’s just for a few minutes, hehe!” If you say so, I think to myself.

“Yeah, we should do this again some time,” I say, trying not to sound too half-hearted.

“Umm, we will?” Brooke says with a giggle. “At the party?”

“Well- yeah, I guess,” I chuckle as I feel my nerves start to jangle. “See- umm, see you there!”

“Hehe!” Abbey-Gayle giggles excitedly as she gives me a hug, before leading the other girls out of the flat. Once they’re gone, I immediately drop down onto the sofa where they were just sat, the lingering perfume of the three girls invading my nostrils and causing me to hyperventilate as it triggers memories I haven’t thought about in a long, LONG time.

“My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann,” I whisper to myself. “I am NOT a girl. My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann. I am NOT-“

“Are- are they gone, then?” Chloe asks, emerging from my bedroom dressed in her skirt and top from yesterday and have even applied a quick layer of make-up.

“Umm, yeah,” I reply, taking a deep breath to compose myself. “Just- just dropped round to give me this.” Chloe frowns in confusion as I hand her the invitation.

“What is it?” Chloe asks, her eyes widening and her jaw dropping as she reads the card inside. “Oh- oh my GOD! You- you’ve been invited to an Angel’s birthday party?”

“Well- well I went to Stuart’s last month,” I remind my girlfriend.

“That’s hardly the same thing,” Chloe snorts, making me fidget uncomfortably at the slight against my friend and mentor. “I sometimes forget how close you used to be to Abbey-Gayle!”

“I wish I could,” I snort in reply, my chest feeling tighter with every passing second. “You know it was, my- my mum who used to make me hang out with them, umm, when I- when I was ‘Kayleigh-Ann’…”

“Huh, okay,” Chloe shrugs, making me frown with frustration. The biggest source of stress from my childhood, and all she can say is 'huh, okay'?. “Oh my god, it’s next Sunday! I can come down for that! I’m sure I can persuade my mum to let me come down again…”

“Yeah, I- I’m not sure I’ll be going…” I mumble.

“What?” Chloe asks, her face contorting into a frown. “Why- why wouldn’t you?”

“I- I dunno,” I sigh, leaning back in my chair and trying to relax, or at the very least, stop panicking. “Abbey-Gayle and the others, they- they’re a part of my past. K- ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s past. And I’ve been trying really, really hard to forget that past over the last three years, okay?”

“So what?” Chloe shrugs. “You’re not ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ anymore, you haven’t been for ages, and it says ‘Ian’ on the invitation, so what’s the big deal?”

“What- seriously?” I ask, my panic quickly being replaced by frustration and anger. “You know the shit I went through as a kid, the shit I’m still going through, and you seriously ask ‘what’s the big deal’?”

“Wha- don’t talk to me like that!” Chloe snaps, further fuelling my anger. “So you had a tough childhood, big deal. Why should it bother you now, you’ve put it behind you, haven’t you?”

“Do you- fuck, I can’t believe this!” I snort, before growling with frustration. “Are you seriously that insensitive, or do you only care that Princess Chloe Barnard has finally got her invite to the big Angel party like she always wanted?”

“You- you total prick!” Chloe says, her face reddening with rage. The next thing I’m aware of is Chloe’s knee raising, almost in slow motion, and making hard contact with my groin.

No doubt you're wondering why this would be a big deal, right? After all, I have no 'equipment' for Chloe to damage. Well, two- and a-bit years of testosterone injections doesn't just cause me to grow a little facial hair, it affects my whole body. My muscle definition has greatly increased. I have less fat on my hips and my backside. And my clitoris, the most sensitive part of my anatomy, has greatly increased in size whilst being just as sensitive as it was before... And I've just had a sharp, bony knee impact it at full speed. Spots form before my eyes as I slump to the ground, curled up into the foetal position, while Chloe looks on while a look of utter disgust in her eyes.

“Ugh, stop pretending, you pathetic little shit,” Chloe sneers as I take several deep breaths to try to ease the pain. “If you don’t want to take me to that party, fine. But you won’t be taking me ANYWHERE from now on. Goodbye. Don’t bother messaging me- I won’t read it.”

“W- wait,” I gasp, trying to get to my feet but stumbling down again, meaning I’m forced to watch as Chloe grabs her suitcase and leaves the flat without saying another word. Feeling utterly broken, I stumble back to the sofa where I crash down and take several deep breaths to calm myself, before the mixture of pain, frustration and anguish causes me to break down in a flood of tears.

“FUCK!” I yell, throwing a hard punch into the cushion next to me. “Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!” How typical that even when the universe grinds me down, it still somehow finds yet another way to screw me over…

I stay on the sofa for the rest of the morning, not bothering to get dressed, not even bothering to eat or shower as I desperately try to think of anything positive in my life. I must have fallen asleep at some point, as the next thing I’m aware of is being awoken by a loud knock coming from the front door. Despite my hopes, I’m forced to accept that once again, I’m not dreaming, and I wasn’t when Abbey-Gayle knocked on the door either. This is cold, hard reality- something I really don’t want to deal with right now.

“Go away,” I moan.

“Mate, it’s Stuart,” my mentor shouts through the door, making me sigh. “Come on, open up.”

“I don’t feel well,” I feebly protest.

“Yeah, and I think I know why,” Stuart says more softly. “Come on, let me in already.” I sigh as I slowly lift myself off the sofa and head to the front door.

“Hi,” I sigh, prompting a grimace from my mentor.

“Ye- erm, no offence, mate,” Stuart says. “And I know guys aren’t really meant to comment on each other’s appearances, but you- you really look like shit.”

“Thanks,” I sarcastically snort as I let my older friend into the flat. “Though I probably feel a lot worse than I look.”

“Yep, I can believe that,” Stuart sighs as he sits down on the sofa, unconsciously spreading his legs like any other man- any other man apart from me, anyway…

“You- you know about me and Chloe, then?” I ask, barely keeping my emotions in check as Stuart nods. “H- how?”

“Facebook,” Stuart explains. “Chloe’s got me and Jamie on there, remember? She updated her relationship status to ‘single’, posted an update saying some really unflattering things about- well, she didn’t mention you by name, but it was, you know, kinda obvious…”

“Ugh,” I moan, collapsing into Lee’s chair and closing my eyes. “This is really what I needed right now…”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” Stuart sighs. “How- what happened, anyway? Chloe always seemed like she was besotted with you…”

“Ugh, THAT,” I moan, pointing at the discarded envelope on the coffee table.

“What, Abbey-Gayle’s party?” Stuart asks as he picks up the invitation and looks at it. “Why would this cause you two to break up? Why did you even get an invitation anyway? I didn’t know you and Abbey-Gayle were friends…” Really? I think to myself self-pityingly.

“Ugh,” I spit again. “I- it- ugh. What it is, is that ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ was friends with Abbey-Gayle. Forced to be. By my mum. So when she drops round, with Brooke and Georgie too, it- I kinda get, you know, flashbacks…”

“Ugh,” Stuart spits. “Sometimes I’m glad that ‘Claire’ never had any real friends, heh. Not real friends like, well, ‘Stuart’ has. But then again, so do you. Loads of friends, right?”

“Well- yeah, I guess,” I sigh. “It- it’s just something about being back in that situation, though, when I’d given EVERYTHING to try to put it in my past…”

“Ehh… Yeah, I guess I can kinda get that,” Stuart sighs. “So why did Chloe fly off the handle, then? Seeing you sat in your dressing gown talking to three girls?”

“Heh, no, I don’t think she even noticed that,” I snort. “Hell, I barely even noticed it. If it was three other girls, I might have, but those three…”

“I get it,” Stuart says. “Wasn’t going to imply you weren’t into girls, heh.”

“Well, I’m not into any anymore, am I?” I ask with a tired, sarcastic smile. “What happened was that I said I wasn’t sure I’d be going to the party, I tried to explain why, why it made me so stressed and she- she just treated it like it was nothing.”

“Ugh,” Stuart spits. “You know, you’re not supposed to criticise a guy’s girl, not even an ex, but she- she always did strike me as being a bit, you know, obsessive… Kinda reminded me a bit of your mum in a way.”

“Oh, thanks for THAT,” I say, before letting out a sarcastic snort of laughter. “Makes me feel a little better about the breakup, though.”

“Well, whether or not you go to the party is your decision,” Stuart advises. “Certainly had nothing to do with Chloe even before the breakup. Though I will say this- just because you had female friends before, well, before you were Ian, it doesn’t make you any less ‘Ian’ to hang out with them now. Especially as me, Mikey and the other guys will all be at the party as well, so you can just spend the whole evening hanging out with us if you decide to come. IF.”

“Well- thanks,” I say, before sighing. “Party’s the last thing on my mind right now though, I- I’d just rather be left alone.”

“Bad idea when you’re depressed, especially for you,” Stuart says, glancing over at the coffee table again and smirking. “Especially as Chelsea are going to finish ahead of Arsenal this year.”

“Hah, you wish!” I snort, before grinning as Stuart tosses me a PS4 controller from our table. “So… FIFA session, then?”

“Always cheers me up,” Stuart says, making room for me on the sofa as I switch on the TV and pop in the game disc.

We only spend around an hour gaming before Stuart needs to head home, but it is enough time to put a smile back on my face (especially as my Arsenal team beats his Chelsea 4 games out of 5). Before Stuart leaves, though, I let out a sigh at another opened envelope I spy on the table beside the front door.

“What’s up?” Stuart asks, concerned by my sudden angst.

“Ugh, just- I’ve got another solicitor’s meeting tomorrow,” I sigh, picking up the envelope stuffed with legal information that I barely understand and that hasn’t helped to even slightly move the lawsuit forward. “Well, at least I’ll have more money for this now that I’m NOT going to be spending any on Chloe anytime soon…”

“Mate, you know my opinion about this,” Stuart says.

“I am NOT signing for Heavenly Talent,” I state firmly.

“Well- okay, that’s your choice,” Stuart says. “I know how stressed it’d make you. But I know how stressed this lawsuit’s making you, as well as uni work, and now Chloe too… There’s no shame in asking for help if you need it, you know? It really doesn’t make you any less of a man.”

“…Yeah, I know,” I sigh. “Dr Phillips has told me that more than once.”

“Mm,” Stuart mumbles in agreement. “And yet I’m the one who had to come round here to cheer you up, rather than you calling me.” Stuart bites his lip as I frown, unable to retort. “I’m going to be in the office all next week, anyway. JB’s rented out the recording studio to a couple of local up and coming bands, which means he’s rented ME out as well, and, well- yeah. Not in case you change your mind, but just in case you need to chat or anything.”

“Thanks,” I say, closing the door behind Stuart and letting out a long, pained sigh.

Over the last three months it’s felt like literally everything has fallen apart for me. First came the lawsuit, which caused my grades to start to slip, which caused me to spend less time with my friends, which caused them to want to spend less time with me, which caused me to get more stressed, which caused my relationship with Chloe to get strained, which has now caused the relationship to end. And now, with Abbey-Gayle forcing her way back into my life, it even feels like my masculinity, which I fought so, so hard to earn, is being stripped away from me too.

The only constant in my life over the last few months has been stress. Stress over the lawsuit, over university, over Chloe and now over my very identity. Unlike Stuart, I don’t have the comfort of male genitalia to remind me of who I truly am. My name IS Ian. I AM a boy. But sometimes, the world seems to want to convince me that that simply isn’t true. When I was with Chloe, she’d go to great lengths to reassure me that I was as male as any other boyfriend. And even when she dumped me, to her credit, she didn’t throw my being transgender in my face. But now that I’m alone, I have no one to take my mind off the fact that I AM different to other boys. Some would even say 'wrong'.

I could call home, of course, but in all likelihood, mum would answer and pressure me into taking Joshua Benedict’s offer. And even if grandma answered, she’d probably tell me to go to church, especially as today’s Sunday. Lee would probably tell a few jokes and make me laugh to briefly take my mind off of it, but he wouldn’t be able to provide a long-term solution- why should he, when he has his own, much tougher university work to deal with?

However, as I sulk, I’m forced to concede that there are people in the world who have been entirely altruistic with me. People who have helped me without expecting anything in return- and the man who just left the flat is top of that list. He dropped round on a Sunday morning, without needing to be asked, to simply spend time with me and make sure I was alright. And he didn’t ask for anything in return other than ensuring that I was okay. Even though he’d disagree, the fact is that I owe him, and I have no idea how to pay him back- other than only one way…

The following morning, I walk into the large office building dressed in smart trousers, a plain white shirt and a tie, a determined look on my face as I immediately spot the man I was looking for- however, that man is not Ross Michaels.

“Ian Freeman!” The always-ebullient voice of Joshua Benedict booms across the reception area, my presence having distracted him from his conversation with one of his agents. “You are looking smart today! Though with that being said, I know better than to try to coerce you into being one of my models. As talented as you would be!”

“Well- that’s the thing,” I say, fidgeting nervously as my heart rate increases and a fine sheen of sweat starts to appear on my forehead. “You- you don’t need to coerce me. If- if the offer is still on the table, I- I’d like to, umm…” I feel my whole body start to tremble as the tall, imposing man stares down at me with a mixture of confusion and concern on his face.

“Come with me,” Joshua says softly, leading me to an empty office on the side of the reception area, where I sit down opposite him. “Ian, I- I know you’re having legal issues at the moment. Stuart has explained to me that your current solicitor may as well be a painting on the wall. I am under no illusions that if you were to sign with me, it would primarily be because you want to make use of my contacts, and my resources.”

“Umm, okay…” I say, my cheeks starting to flush.

“…But I am okay with that,” Joshua continues, earning a look of confusion from me. “For two reasons. Firstly, because I originally made you the offer before your legal issues began, and I am a man of my word. And secondly… Heh. Ian, do you really believe that people become models, or actors or singers because they like working long hours, or sleeping in trailers, or not going home for weeks at a time? No, of course they don’t! They’re in it for money and fame. And that is okay. I would not be a good agent if I did not want the people in my care to earn money and fame. But I also have a duty of care to those who are signed to me, especially when it comes to mental health. I don’t know everything that you have gone through, and I will not insult you by pretending to understand. But I do know that the work you would be expected to do- and if you sign for me, I will expect you to work, obviously around your studies- it will involve a lot of public interest. I need you to be certain that this is what you truly want. If it is, I can interview you right now.”

I nod and take a deep breath before responding- this is the big question, after all. If I sign for Joshua benedict, every nightmare I had when I was a child will be coming true. I’ll be a model, I’ll have my face in magazines and catalogues… And there, standing at the sidelines, will be my mother, with a wide, smug grin on her face. Except… She won’t be if I say she won’t. It won’t be ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s face in magazines, it’ll be ‘Ian’s face. MY face. My name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann, and I am NOT a girl. And I am NOT a slave to my mother’s whims. If I want to sign for Heavenly Talent, it’s not relevant to what she wants, not even slightly. It’ll solve far more problems than it would cause. My university work will come first, as Joshua literally just reassured me. I’ll be in a supportive, caring environment. And god knows how much it’d piss Chloe off if I signed for them literally 24 hours after she dumped me…

“I understand,” I say calmly. “And I DO want this.”

“Okay,” Joshua says with a nod. “You are your own man, an adult, and it is your decision to make. Our photographer is in today, we shall do the photoshoot first, then you and I shall have a talk about the type of work you want to do. I shall also give you our lawyer’s contact details so that you can set up a meeting with her.”

“Thank you,” I say, before frowning as I realise something. “Do- do you usually give people interviews ten minutes after they ask to be represented by you?” My cheeks redden further as Joshua replies with a loud, booming laugh.

“Of course!” Joshua exclaims. “If you give people time to prepare for an interview you will get prepared answers to your questions. Give them no time to prepare, you will get real answers instead.”

“Well- makes sense,” I chuckle as we stand up and I follow my prospective agent through to a large room on the opposite side of the office, where a young, freckled woman is waiting, who I instantly recognise as a friend of Nikki's and Jacinta's.

“Oh, hi boss,” the young woman says in her thick London accent. “I’m just setting up, didn’t realise we had an interview already?”

“That is alright, Katie, as neither did I!” Joshua replies with a chuckle as I’m stood on a spot in front of the camera and instructed to pose by the photographer. Much to my surprise, it comes naturally- the posing, even the facial expressions require little to no effort from me, to the point where I almost start to enjoy myself.

“Looking good!” Katie teases me, making me roll my eyes as she takes another photo. “Oh come on, you do! That shirt really suits you, but I reckon you’d look better without the tie, maybe roll up your sleeves a little?” I try not to blush as I do as I’m told, even though with every passing second, I’m having to fight my natural instinct to sprint out of the studio as fast as I can. A few seconds (and a few more photos) later, though, the session is interrupted when the studio door opens, and my mentor comes through carrying a small pile of audio equipment under his arm.

“Stuart!” Joshua exclaims, surprised (and seemingly a little irritated) by the interruption. “Are you not supposed to be recording?”

“And I would be if these idiots had remembered to bring along spare guitar strings,” Stuart snorts. “I wanted to make sure though that I heard what I thought I heard, and I did, and I will admit I’m more than a bit surprised to see you here today, Ian!”

“I’m a bit surprised too,” I confess as I step away from the camera to talk to my mentor.

“We all are!” Joshua chuckles. “Though it always a pleasant surprise to welcome another member to the Heavenly Talent family. I know Jamie will be happy, she wanted all of her ‘Fellowship’ involved with us in one way or another.”

“I’ll definitely be happy as well,” Stuart says, “but Ian’s a musician, not a model.”

“Umm… What?” I ask. “I am?”

“Well, Dan’s about to be elbow deep in baby shit for a third time,” Stuart explains. “So we’re gonna need a bassist, especially as we’ll be recording soon, both in the studio and the music video.”

“…So far this ‘Celestials’ project of yours hasn’t made a single penny,” Joshua retorts.

“We will, we will,” Stuart insists. “Once we get this video for ‘There She Goes’ recorded, we’ll be laughing, trust me. I know what I’m talking about when it comes to music.”

“If you insist,” Joshua says.

“And there’s the small matter that I haven’t even been offered a contract yet,” I mumble.

“Well- we can resolve that now,” Joshua says. “Three months, on a part-time trial basis. I will expect you to fulfil on average one job per week. Though… Recording with Stuart and his band will count toward that fulfilment as well.”

“Even though I’ve only been learning bass guitar for six months?” I ask.

“Five and a half months longer than most bassists, mate,” Stuart chuckles as he gives me a gentle pat on my back. “When are you meant to be seeing your solicitor today? You said you had a meeting with him, didn’t you?”

“Hmm… Not anymore,” I reply, which earns a chuckle from Joshua, much to my relief.

“Come on,” Joshua says, his hand replacing Stuart’s on my back. “I’ll get my secretary to draw up the contract, then we can get it signed, and then, maybe, things will start to get better!” I hope so, I think to myself.

After signing the contract, and being offered some immediate work for the Easter holiday (Heavenly Talent is so well-respected as an agency that it usually has more requests than it can fill), I had my meeting with Ross where I explained that his services would no longer be required. A few days later, I met with Janet Bean, Heavenly Talent’s retained lawyer, who reassured me that the lawsuit could and would be resolved very quickly. A few days after that, I attended Abbey-Gayle’s party, where as promised, I spent virtually all of the time hanging out with Stuart and his friends. And a few days after that, Lee returned from Wales, and we both returned to university, and life returned to normal- or in my case, the new normal.

Despite (or maybe because of) photos of me at Abbey-Gayle’s party being plastered over Facebook, I hadn’t heard a single peep from Chloe by the time I returned to university. How a person can go from declaring their love for me one minute to utter hatred the next is baffling to me. My friends have tried to reassure me that that’s just how women are, but having been one myself, it still confuses me- or maybe that’s yet more evidence that I was never really a woman. Either way, my ‘new normal’ includes the word ‘single’, and will do for the foreseeable future. Sure, I do catch the eye of more than a few girls at university, but I genuinely have no idea which, if any of them know the 'truth' about me- and that's a risk I'm not willing to take right now. Even if I am now officially a model AND in a band, which all of my (male) friends assure me should make me a girl magnet. And yet, I don’t feel like one. Whether it’s because of my anxiety, or because of my (no doubt over the moon) mother, or because I’m still hung up on Chloe, I can’t say. All I know is that one source of anxiety in my life is about to be discarded forever, but a few months from now, my new anxieties may make me so stressed out that I might even miss the relative simplicity of being sued…

“Hey, it’s Sonic the Hedgehog!” Stuart says as I enter his music room, earning laughter from our friends and an eye roll from me.

“Funny man,” I snort.

“Yeah, I thought so too,” Stuart says with a smug grin.

“And how long am I gonna have that nickname for, anyway?” I moan as I pick up my bass guitar and start tuning it. “I washed the dye out days ago…”

“More’s the pity,” Mikey laughs.

“And to answer your question,” Stuart says, “it’ll last until the Arse actually wins something. So about another 40 years.” I roll my eyes again before smirking as a flying drumstick hits my mentor in the back of the head, no doubt thrown by our band’s drummer, who is also an Arsenal fan. Stuart laughs as he throws the drumstick back, before glancing over at me, his smug grin replaced by a look of concern, wordlessly asking me if I’m okay- not just with the banter or the teasing, but with everything that’s gone on over the last two and a bit months- and god knows there's been a lot going on.

If anything, being forced to dye my hair blue is the least stressful thing I’ve had to put up recently. That came about because last Wednesday, my beloved Arsenal FC reached the final of the Europa League, a prestigious pan-European soccer competition… Where, as chance would have it, they ended up playing Stuart’s beloved Chelsea FC. Naturally, as the match was between two London-based clubs, it took place in the capital of Azerbaijan, but that didn’t stop me and Stuart from watching it on TV- and from putting a bet on the outcome of the match. Two years ago, Arsenal played Chelsea in the final of the FA Cup, and Arsenal won 2-1, meaning that afterward, Stuart had five two litre bottles of red-coloured soda dumped on his head in the stadium car park. Last week, however, my beloved Gunners got thumped 3-0, meaning that I spent three days last week walking around with spiky blue-coloured hair- hence the new nickname.

The reason I only had the dye in my hair for three days was because four days after the match, I was stood in front of a camera, modelling t-shirts for a local up and coming clothing firm. It was relatively easy work, even if it was a long day (especially for a Sunday), and it paid well, even after giving the agency their cut, but it still made me feel more and more stressed out with every photo that was taken of me. Because with every photo, I could feel my public profile grow more and more- and I could feel my mother’s stare grow more and more intense.

Of course, consciously I know that my modelling work has nothing to do with my mother. As my counsellor reminds me, I am doing this despite her, not because of her and certainly not for her. I willingly walked down this path, I wasn’t pushed or dragged and I am most definitely not carrying anyone with me. I’m told that my mother’s being told the same thing by her counsellor in Cardiff- that I must be allowed to live my own life, and that keeping my stress levels low is more important than satisfying any of her own wants or needs. That doesn’t stop my blood pressure rising, though, every time she calls or messages me, ostensibly to ‘see how I am’, though I know the real reason she wants to talk to me…

And even worse, my most precious and reliable source of ‘stress relief’ hasn’t so much as spoken to me in months. Ever since the FA Cup final of 2017, Arsenal and Chelsea have played each other many times, but Stuart and I were always prevented from betting on the match by our significant others. We were able to make the bet last week, though, because I obviously no longer have an ‘other’, significant or otherwise. I always knew that Chloe had a fierce temper, but for her to hold a grudge against me for this long… She won’t even speak to me through a third party. Every time Lee messages her, she messages back saying simply ‘I have nothing to say to him’. How terrible, how useless a human being must I be to have a woman who used to love me refuse to even acknowledge my existence? I want to be angry at her, at the way we broke up, at the utterly insensitive way she casually dismissed my stress, but as hard as I try, I always end up wondering whether or not what she said might be right... And the fact is, I DID go to Abbey-Gayle's party without her.

Lee, Mac and Ben have all helped to take my mind off of things, though. Well- they've tried, anyway. As has Dan, in his own 'unique' way. And of course, so has Stuart and the rest of the band. They all insist that I was far too good for Chloe, that she doesn't know what she's lost... I'm not sure I can agree with them, though. Not least because every time they try to cheer me up, I keep picturing my mother's face, telling me to smile more, to be more grateful for all the things she and dad provided for me, every piece of criticism I ever received when I was a child. I don't want to resent my friends- but they're not making it easy for me.

One consolation I have, though, is the word at the end of Chloe’s reply to Lee- the word ‘him’. As much as she hates me right now, she doesn’t deny my masculinity. As much as Stuart teases me, he doesn’t deny my masculinity- not that he of all people ever would. And as much as mum stresses me out, even she doesn’t deny my masculinity, not anymore. The whole world has seemingly accepted that my name IS Ian, and I AM a man. The only exception is my so-called father- and even he won’t be a problem for much longer. Maybe then I'll actually feel like I have SOME control over my life...

“Are you all prepared for Monday, then?” Mikey asks me.

“What’s happening on Monday?” Paul, our lead singer, asks. “You got an exam, Ian?”

“Ah- no,” I reply. “All done with them for this year, just got a bit more coursework to do, that's all. What I’m actually doing on Monday is meeting with my lawyer and finally, hopefully, sticking this lawsuit six feet under, where it belongs.”

“Ah, good,” Jonathan, our drummer, says. “We need our bassist distraction-free if we’re gonna get this video recorded, anyway!”

“As much as we need a bassist, anyway,” Mikey jokes, laughing as I pretend to swing my guitar at him.

“And why do we need to rehearse when we’re only going to be miming in the video anyway?” I ask.

“Because believe me when I say it looks really obvious if we don’t know what we’re doing,” Stuart replies. “Now hurry up and tune up, hedgehog, Jamie and Olivia will be back soon, and I want us to get this down by then.”

“Yes, yes, okay,” I say, playing a few notes on my bass guitar to satisfy my friends that it’s tuned, before Stuart counts us in and we begin practising.

As Stuart predicted, his wife and daughter arrive home a short while later, bringing our practice session to an end, much to my relief- and much to the delight of at least one member of our band.

“Hi daddy!” Olivia squeaks happily as we enter the living room.

“Hi cutie!” Stuart says, scooping the two-year-old girl up in his arms before giving his wife a kiss. “Hey you, hehe!”

“Hey,” Jamie whispers back, before addressing the rest of us. “Hey guys. Good playdate?”

“Funny!” Mikey sarcastically retorts. “But yes, it was a good practice session.” As Jamie and the rest of the band continue to chat, I smile and nod along with what’s being said, all the time trying not to fidget. It’s not like I don’t like Jamie or the rest of the band- I consider myself privileged to call them my friends. But the fact is that they’re all at least eight years older than me, and that’s something that makes me feel VERY out of place in all the discussion of work, mortgages, kids… Earlier today, I was at university, hanging out with Mac and Ben, and I felt like I truly belonged, like that was where I was meant to be. No worries about my public image, or keeping my weight in check, or checking my phone for any new work- I could just kick back, relax and just be an ordinary nineteen-year-old guy. And I know I should be grateful to have so many older, more well-off friends who genuinely like me for who I am- but every time Jamie smiles at me, I can almost picture my mother staring at me, or hear that little voice in the back of my head that tells me that I don't REALLY belong here- after all, these are men, while I'm only barely a boy...

My counsellor has frequently told me that these feelings of 'impostor syndrome' are common and that I shouldn't worry too much, correctly pointing out that around guys my own age, such as Lee, Ben and Mac, I feel perfectly fine- and also did so when I first moved to Cardiff, just after I'd first come out. It still doesn't stop me worrying that when I get older, I'll never be a 'real' man...

Fortunately, the chat only lasts for a few more minutes before Jamie sees us to the door, giving all of my friends a gentle hug as they leave, but saving a longer hug for me.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jamie whispers to me.

“Hmm?” I reply. “Umm, yeah, I’m fine, just- just a bit nervous about Monday.” Among other things… I think to myself.

“Well, it’s the weekend, so try to relax, okay?” Jamie advises. “Things are going to get better for you soon, I can feel it.”

“Thanks,” I whisper.

“See you tomorrow, mate,” Stuart says, giving me a wave as I head out of the house and to Mikey’s waiting van, where I climb onto the front seat next to Paul and let out a long sigh.

“You’re not THAT tired, are you?” Paul asks.

“It’s just been a long week,” I shrug. “Uni, that sort of stuff. I’m really looking forward to the weekend, that’s all.”

“Well, I don’t blame you,” Paul says with a grin. “Especially with practice tomorrow!”

“Practice?” I ask, before my heart sinks as I realise what the blond-haired man means- and why Stuart said he’d see me tomorrow when tomorrow’s Saturday.

“Yes,” Paul replies. “For the team? The team you volunteered for last month when I asked? I’m surprised you don’t remember…”

“Some of us have day jobs that don’t involve sport,” Mikey reminds our friend. “Others of us are students, which is almost the same thing.” And some of us are just so used to saying ‘yes’ when asked to do things that we don’t even register when we’ve done it, I think to myself ruefully as I remember a band session last month when Paul announced he was thinking of putting a cricket team together and asked for volunteers. Everyone else’s hands immediately shot up, therefore before I even knew what I was doing, my hand went up as well. I’ve never played cricket before, I’ve never wanted to play it, I’ve never even WATCHED it before. And yet, tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to be playing it. Just the same as when I first picked up a bass guitar, or before my first modelling job, or taking ballet classes and acting lessons when I was younger…

“This’ll get you in the mood,” Paul says with a grin as he fiddles with his phone and the van’s stereo. Seconds later, the song 'Dreadlock Holiday' by 10CC fills the van, earning an eye roll from me and a scowl from our driver.

“Never, EVER mess with my stereo,” Mikey growls, before chuckling. “Not that I, as a musician, have anything against 10CC, or reggae in general."

“Or cricket?” Paul asks.

“I liked playing it at school,” Mikey shrugs. “I preferred basketball more, for obvious reasons, though.” The ‘obvious reason’ being that Mikey’s 6’ 3”- something that’s hard to ignore when all 5’ 7” of me is stood next to him when we’re practising for the band.

“How about you, Ian?” Paul asks. “What sports did you like at schoo… Oh.” I bite my lip and try not to blush as Paul’s voice trails off, realising that my answer to that question isn’t going to be like either of my two friends’.

“…In addition to being his school’s star cricket player,” Mikey says, “he was also apparently the champion at sticking his foot in his mouth.”

“Ugh, I am SO sorry, Ian,” Paul moans. “I just, you know, keep forgetting?”

“And you can tell this is true because Paul is physically incapable of talking to women,” Mikey teases, earning an angry glare from our cricket-loving friend. “…Prove me wrong, mate.”

“I dated Hannah for, like, months,” Paul retorts. “And Anna-Jade for ages before her! And before you say anything, yes, she was also transgender, and no, I never saw her as anything other than 100% female.”

“And for what it’s worth,” I interject in an attempt to assert at least some control over the conversation, “I do take it as a compliment. You know, forgetting? God knows I wish I could.”

“Yeah, Stu says that a lot too,” Mikey says.

“Well, you’ll just have to make up for lost time tomorrow!” Paul chuckles.

“Yeah,” I chuckle nervously.

“And on another note, mate,” Paul continues, “being on a sports team equals ‘girls throwing themselves at you’. Trust me.”

“Which is why Paul likes cricket so much,” Mikey interjects. “Gives him something to bat them back with!”

“You natural born comedian,” Paul snorts. “But yeah, play on the team and you will get over what’s her name in, like, a second.”

“Chloe,” I say. “And trust me, I am not starving for female interest, not since signing for Heavenly Talent.” I roll my eyes as my friends both let out sarcastic ‘ooh’s at my statement, which is fair as it was only half-true. While I’ve definitely had a lot more female attention since signing for Heavenly Talent- even from some of the other younger models signed to the agency- I’ve not had any interest in any of them. Not that the girls aren’t sexy, or funny, or don’t have great personalities, or even that they don’t have the same interests as me- it’s just that none of them are Chloe.

“Show off,” Mikey snorts.

“…You’re married,” I remind the tall, long-haired man.

“And you’re still a show-off,” Mikey retorts as the van pulls up outside my student flat. “See you tomorrow, okay?”

“Sure,” I say as I grab my bag and guitar from the back of the van before a thought springs to my mind. “Hey Paul, would- would you mind if I brought along some of my friends tomorrow? To try out for the team, I mean?”

“Sure, the more the merrier!” Paul chuckles. “Just tell them to wear tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt, nothing too heavy.”

“Will do,” I say with a grin. Maybe then I won’t feel completely out of place…

I grin as I open the door to be greeted by the sound of Fortnite, backed by the sound of four excited guys of my age.

“Hey guys,” I say, only earning grunts of greeting in reply.

“Good practice session?” Mac asks.

“Do many drugs?” Dan asks, making me and the others roll our eyes.

“Yes and no, in that order,” I reply. “How long have you been here?”

“Umm, we came straight here after uni, as we told you,” Mac replies. “And… That’s it? Nothing happened at practice, then?”

“Umm, no, I played my guitar a bit, and well- that’s it,” I say, biting my lip as I remember what Paul and I were discussing in the van on the way home- and what I’d asked. “Though afterward…” I try not to blush as my friends good-naturedly jeer at me.

“Oh yeah?” Ben chuckles. “Has your band already got groupies, then?”

“…No, nothing like THAT,” I snort.

“Pity,” Lee says. “And I think I speak for everyone there when I say you do need some ‘all-natural stress relief’.” I roll my eyes again as my friends all nod- this is a conversation that’s become more and more frequent over the past few weeks.

“I am not THAT desperate,” I retort.

“Mate, you’re a guy, and you’ve not had any sex in months,” Lee says. “Trust me, you ARE that desperate.”

“Being male does not necessarily result in a person requiring intercourse on a regular basis,” Dan says, triggering an awkward silence.

“It does if you have genitals,” Mac says, before grimacing and groaning as he realised exactly what he said.

“…Well, then, I should be fine, shouldn’t I?” I mumble as I help myself to some leftover pizza.

“Mate, I’m sorry,” Mac moans. “You know I didn’t mean it like THAT, I just- ugh, I dunno.”

“It’s okay, I get it,” I say. “And what I was trying to say was that tomorrow me and the rest of the band, we- well, our singer, he- he used to be a semi-professional cricketer, and he’s thinking of getting a team together, you know, for summer, and he’s holding, like a practice session tomorrow, and, well, the more the merrier?” I bite my lip as my friends’ faces all turn downward into frowns- this isn’t the response I was hoping for…

“I’m going back to Cardiff for the weekend, mate,” Lee reminds me. “Otherwise, well, maybe.”

“And we all have part-time jobs tomorrow,” Ben says, making me frown- since starting work for Heavenly Talent, I’ve not really needed a weekend job. And no doubt I’m not the only one to have thought that…

“Not all of us can earn money by posing half-naked in front of a camera,” Dan says. …And there it is, I think to myself.

“You certainly couldn’t,” Mac snorts, making me chuckle despite my disappointment. “…Actually, know what? Fuck it, I’ll wangle a day off tomorrow somehow.”

“You- you’re sure, really?” I ask, trying my hardest not to sound TOO desperate.

“Yeah, it’ll be fun, right?” Mac asks. “I always liked cricket at school, and this way you’ll get to hurl balls at my head for my ‘genitals’ comment.”

“And that ‘balls’ comment,” Lee says, earning snorts of laughter from everyone, myself included.

“And it’ll be fun meeting all the other guys again, properly this time,” Mac says. “You can never have too many friends, right?”

“Supposedly,” Dan says, again lowering the mood in the flat.

“…And playing sports is another way of getting girls, so, well, it’s a win all round,” Mac says with a smug grin.

“Meh, maybe I should’ve, then… Eh, whatever,” Ben shrugs.

“Well, I doubt it’ll be our only practice session,” I shrug. “And I think it’s an open invitation, so, well, yeah.”

“I’ll still pass, thanks anyway,” Dan says. Good, I think to myself.

“And if girls are all you’re worried about,” Mac says, “then there’s plenty at uni, right? In, like, nearly nine months I’ve never even seen you talk to one of the girls on our course.”

“Meh, I’m just- just nervous, that’s all,” Ben shrugs. “It’s no biggie, right? Stereotypical nerd and all that, heh.”

“If you say so,” I shrug.

“Says the person who hasn’t talked to a girl either in the last couple of months,” Mac says, making me frown again.

“Like I’ve told you a hundred times, I’m staying single for now,” I retort. “I’m sizing up my options, playing the field… And weren’t you the ones who advised me to enjoy being single for the time being?”

“That was before we realised how cut up you’d be about Chloe,” Lee says, deepening my frown.

“That- can we please maybe change the subject?” I sigh.

“Seconded,” Dan says, for once not making me scowl, even if I know his agreement has nothing to do with making me feel better.

“…Aren’t you meant to be at an LGBT society meeting tonight?” Lee asks, and this time, I do scowl, and groan with frustration.

“Meh, I- I’ll message them later, apologise for not going, tell them I had a lot on my plate,” I reply. Which isn’t too far from the truth- between my coursework, my modelling work, the band and now the cricket team, my time’s being spread so thin that I completely forgot about the meeting. Which is annoying, as I was really looking forward to it, too…

Our friends stick around until just after 9pm before heading home, and despite it being a Friday night, Lee and I head to be shortly afterward- he has a long drive tomorrow, something he prefers to do as early in the morning as possible, while I’m going to have a pretty energetic day- cricket might not be the most physical sport in the world, but it’s still going to require me to be on my feet all day, so I’ll need all the rest I can get tonight. To that end, I also take an amitriptyline tablet before I go to bed- I’ve recently been prescribed them by my GP to help with anxiety and depression, but they also help me sleep better too- and keep my mind off the fact that I’m once again sleeping alone, and that’s not going to change anytime soon…

Lee has already left by the time I wake up the following morning, and I let out a loud sigh as I get up and make myself some breakfast. Normally, I’d spend most Saturday mornings chatting with Chloe online, or playing FIFA or watching Netflix with Lee, but with neither of those two being an option today, I flop down on the sofa with my breakfast and try to distract myself with daytime TV- anything to avoid thinking about what’s happening later today.

I like all the other members of the band, even though they’re all older than me- they’re friendly, sensitive of my ‘status’ and genuinely great guys to be around, and yet the thought of spending all day playing cricket with them fills me with dread, and I can’t explain why. If I’d been going along by myself today, I’d have considered telling the guys that I was ill, too ill to play, but with Mac going along as well, I couldn’t do that to him. I could always fake an injury if I really didn’t want to go- whenever I really wanted to get out of ballet class, I’d smack one of my ankles with a heavy book, something large enough to leave a bruise, and claim I twisted it while warming up. It even worked a few times, too- though on those occasions, I was barely able to walk for days afterward…

In the end, I decide to suck it up, and after a quick shower, I pull on a comfortable pair of loose black jogging bottoms, a plain red t-shirt and my old pair of Nike trainers and head to the nearest tube station. My tension eases slightly when the train reaches Tottenham Court Road and Mac gets on, obviously relieved to see me waiting for him.

“Hi mate!” The tall, blond haired boy says with a grin as he stands next to me on the packed train. “I was half panicking you weren’t going to be there today, heh!”

“Nah, I wasn’t going to leave you in the lurch like that,” I half-lie. “Have you met the Celestials before?”

“Only at your birthday party,” Mac replies. “And that was, like, five months ago, heh. Don’t even have them on Facebook. Well, not yet, anyway.”

“Well, they’re a friendly bunch of guys,” I say. “You should get on fine with them. Well, depending on how good at cricket you are, anyway.”

“Yeah, it has been a while since I last played that, heh,” Mac says with an awkward chuckle.

“Been forever since I have,” I retort, triggering an awkward silence- well, as silent as it gets in a packed tube train, anyway.

The field where we’re training today is only a short walk from our tube station, but even that short distance is covered in silence, Mac looking very nervous either about the day ahead or fear that he'll say something else insensitive. We both breathe sighs of relief, though when we arrive and are greeted by the sight of several of my friends- and several faces I don’t recognise. Much to my surprise, though, there is another face here that I recognise- and she’s also the last person I was expecting to see today.

“Hey, Ian!” Laura says with a giggle as she skips over to us. “And it’s… Mac, right?”

“Well remembered!” Mac chuckles. “You’re Laura, right?”

“Yep!” The tall blonde girl replies. “And no, I’m not trying out for the team, hehe! I’m here with my brother and my stepfather, who both are, and my stepdad’s giving me a driving lesson once we’re done here.”

“We’re not expecting to be here long, then?” Mac asks.

“Well- HE isn’t,” Laura giggles. “He’s 41 and this’ll be the first exercise he’s done in years, heh. But he heard Ricky was trying out for the team and wanted to try to bond with him a bit more, you know, ‘cause he’s now Ricky’s stepdad as well as mine.”

“Fair enough,” I shrug.

“And it also helps that there are a LOT of cute guys here today,” Laura giggles, giving both of us a playful kiss on the cheek before skipping over to the side of the field and immersing herself in her phone.

“…Okay, she IS cute,” Mac chuckles, before frowning. “She- she is also, umm, you know… Right?”

“Like me, but ‘opposite’?” I reply. “Yep.”

“No offence, mate,” Mac says, “but she passes better as a girl than you do as a boy!” I grimace as Mac sighs and rolls his eyes again. “…I’ll go ahead and fit an entire shin pad in my mouth, then…”

“Nah,” I shrug. “Not the most sensitive thing you could say to a transgender person, but I do kinda agree with you, heh. She’s also recently become single, so…”

“Ooh, okay,” Mac says teasingly. “So you HAVE been thinking about what we said last night, then?”

“Well- no, not really,” I reply. “Not just for me, anyway, I mean, you’re single, right?”

“Well- yeah, but I’m not really looking at the moment,” Mac replies, making me fidget- the last time I saw Chloe, Mac did a LOT of looking at her, so much that I needed to have words with him in private. If I ‘nudge’ Mac in Laura’s direction, then it might make him less interested in my girlfriend- even if it takes a good few seconds for me to remember that Chloe isn’t my girlfriend anymore…

“Suit yourself,” I shrug, before grinning as Paul jogs up to us with a wide grin on his face.

“Hi Ian!” Paul says excitedly. “Glad you could make it today, I was worried that, you know, I was pushing you into something that wasn’t really your thing…” Yeah, me too, I think to myself.

“Meh, I said I’d come,” I shrug. “This is Mac, by the way, he’s at uni with me, I think you might have met him before at my birthday party?”

“I think so, yeah,” Paul says as he shakes Mac’s hand. “I’m Paul Kennedy, the captain and coach of this team. You’re the guy whose actual first name is a state secret, right?”

“Something like that,” Mac chuckles. “Nice to meet you, though I haven’t played cricket in, like, forever.”

“Well, we are just an amateur team for now,” Paul says. “I’ll try you in a few different positions to see how good you are, if you’re good enough for the first team I’ll get you registered with the league and we can go from there.”

“W- wait, league?” I ask.

“Yes…” Paul replies. “This isn’t, like, just the cricket equivalent of a kickabout, we have entered an amateur league that starts in a couple of weeks. London-based, so it’s not like we’ll be travelling all over the country playing. Well, not yet, anyway!”

“Oh, umm, okay,” I say.

“First things first, though, I just want to get a few things down,” Paul says, handing us each a very professional-looking questionnaire and a pen. “Just need to know your height, weight, BMI, any cricket or other sporting experience, whether you’re left or right-handed, that sort of thing.”

“Does it make a difference if I’m left-handed?” I ask as I instinctively start writing my details with my left hand.

“Yes, definitely,” Paul says, a glint coming to his eyes that makes me wary. “Me, you and Mikey are the only lefties on the team, the more variety we have when it comes to the handedness of bowlers and batsmen, the more of an advantage we’ll have over other teams.” Great, I think to myself. I could suck at the game and still make the team… “Alistair Cook’s left-handed, you know?”

“…Who?” I ask, earning a frown and a tired chuckle from my new captain.

“You REALLY don’t know anything about the game, do you?” Paul chuckles. “It’s okay. I’ll show you the basics. We’re practising with soft balls today until everyone gets boxes, just to get used to everything, that sort of thing.”

“B- boxes?” I ask.

“Yes…” Paul says. “You know…” I frown and grimace as Paul points to his crotch- whatever the word ‘box’ means to him, it certainly means something else to me- which Paul only realises a few seconds later when his eyes go as wide as dinner plates. “Oh- oh shit, umm, sorry, I-“

“Don’t worry, I’ve put my foot in it about fifty times over the last 24 hours,” Mac says as Paul tries to regain his composure. “’Box’ is a term for something guys need to wear when they have cricket balls, which are made out of solid leather and weigh about half a kilo hurled at them at about 80 miles per hour."

"The speed's right for a fast bowler," Paul says, “but it's more like 150 grams than half a kilo. Though that being said..." I flinch as Paul turns to face me again. "I’m guessing you wouldn’t really need the same ‘protection’?”

“Actually… You’d be surprised,” I reply as I think about when Chloe and I last spoke- and the intense pain that her knee caused to me.

For obvious reasons, I try as hard as I can not to think about my genitals. My counsellor has tried to assure me that they’re just a part of who I am, it doesn’t make me any less of a man just because (for now) I have a vagina, or a uterus or ovaries, and that I can always choose to have them replaced eventually. However, I am constantly self-conscious that I am not ‘built’ the same as my other friends- not even the same as Stuart. Even if I do get on the team, I’d never be able to shower with them, I’d always have to pee separately… And now with the ‘box’ comment, I’ve received another reminder that I’m always going to be the odd one out on the team. Even though in this one circumstance, I definitely shouldn’t be.

“I will definitely need one,” I say firmly. “Just- just trust me on this, okay?”

“Well- sure,” Paul shrugs, making a note on his clipboard. “I’ll order one for you too.”

“If I get on the team?” I ask, trying not to grimace as Paul nods. “How many people are here today, anyway?”

“About twenty,” Paul replies. “Mostly husbands and boyfriends of the Angels, or other employees of Heavenly Talent, that sort of thing.”

“Now I feel even more out of place,” Mac chuckles.

“Nah, you’re fine,” Paul says. “Here, we’re all just guys. ALL of us.” I smile and try not to blush as our captain smiles at me supportively, even though I know for a fact that Mac can't feel more out of place than I do right now...

The next ninety minutes are spent practising batting and bowling and getting to know the rest of the potential team- guys like Steph Abbott's older brothers (who, much to my relief, aren't that much taller than me) and my old ballet teacher's younger brother Riley (who, naturally, is considerably taller than me). To my surprise, I turn out to be pretty good at both catching and batting- years of dance lessons have given me excellent posture, despite me spending the last three years slouched on a sofa playing videogames. As I try to weigh up in my mind the prospect of being on an honest to god sports team, Paul calls a halt to the training session and sends us all to lunch. Mac and I head toward a nearby coffee shop to eat, but before we can even leave the field, we’re rejoined by the same unexpected face from before.

“Hey guys!” Laura says as she joins us in the coffee shop queue. “Had fun this morning?”

“Hmm?” I reply, surprised by the sudden appearance of my friend. “Oh, umm, yeah, more than I thought I would, actually.”

“Same here,” Mac says with a smile. “I’m guessing you’ve had less fun, though?”

“Meh, I’ve had things to do,” Laura shrugs. “I’m actually an actress- well, I’m studying at drama college, we’ve got our end of year performance soon and I need to brush up on my lines, heh!” As my friends chat, I can’t help but smile- there’s an obvious mutual attraction between the two of them. “And it’s not like I have anywhere else to go, all of my other friends are busy today. It’s Ashley’s sister’s birthday, Priya and Suri’s parents’ wedding anniversary… And, well, it’s too nice outside to be stuck indoors all day.”

“Well- that’s definitely true,” Mac chuckles. “So you like acting, then?”

“I’ll get the food and the drinks and let you two chat,” I say with a grin as I remain in the queue while my friends find a table.

When I head over to their table five minutes later with our lunches, they’re still deep in conversation, so much so that I actually hesitate before sitting down.

“…Should I give you two some privacy?” I tease, earning an eye roll and a playful sigh from the teenaged girl as she gestures for me to sit down.

“We were just talking,” Mac says.

“About how your ex-girlfriend is an idiot,” Laura says smugly, even as I fidget uncomfortably- even though we’ve split up, I still don’t like to hear anyone talk that way about Chloe.

“Umm, okay…” I say.

“Or, to put it another way, the shitty way she’s treated you since you guys split up,” Mac says. “What with you and the lawsuit and all that, Chloe really showed her, you know, true colours by not standing by you.”

“And we both agree you need a better girlfriend than her,” Laura says, leaning forward on the table and giving me a perfect view of her cleavage, something that makes my whole body start to tingle…

“Well- I wouldn’t say no, heh,” I chuckle, earning a girlish, almost flirtatious giggle from Laura.

“I don’t think either of you have told me yet how you two know each other?” Mac says. “Were you at school together?”

“Well- no, for starters, Ian’s two years older than me,” Laura replies. “We- umm, you- you do, well, ‘know’ about-“

“Yeah- yeah, I know,” Mac says softly. “But I, you know, kinda assumed that just ‘cause you’re, well, ‘T’, that doesn’t automatically mean you know each other?”

“Smart guy,” Laura says with a grin. “No, we did a magazine shoot together a few years ago. Me, Ian and a few other friends. And a couple of famous faces too, you know, like Jamie-Lee Burke and Steph Abbott.”

“Ah, okay, that’s pretty cool,” Mac says.

“And we’ve actually known each other longer than that,” I say. “Laura and I, we- we kinda used to go to the same dance class.”

“Ah, umm, okay…” Mac says, fidgeting awkwardly and understandably so. “No offence, but I- I can’t really picture you in tights, heh.”

“Good,” I say bluntly. “Keep it that way.” I smirk as my two friends both chuckle at my joke.

“I do actually remember that,” Laura says. “But I wasn’t going to mention it as, well, kinda a huge faux pas, bringing up a transgender person’s, well, ‘past life’ without their permission. An even bigger one would be using their deadname, hence why I, well, didn’t.”

“Yep,” I say. “As far as I’m concerned, my name has always been Ian, and I’ve always been a man, and Laura’s name has always been Laura, and she’s always been a woman.”

“Totally,” Laura says.

“Thanks, well, I- heh, I’m learning a lot!” Mac chuckles.

“In fairness, you’ve done alright so far,” I say. “Well, aside from the odd slip of the tongue. Or twelve.”

“Though I personally wouldn’t consider that tights comment to be one,” Laura giggles. “But that’s just me.”

“Heh,” Mac chuckles. “So, Laura, are you going to uni next year, then?”

“No, year after, sadly,” the blonde girl sighs. “Though I’m eighteen in November, so I’m hoping then you’ll invite me to some of your student parties?” Mac lets out a light chuckle as Laura playfully flutters her thick eyelashes at him.

“…I’ll think about it,” my friend replies, before sharing a giggle with Laura that makes me fidget uncomfortably as I’m filled with the same feeling of jealousy I had when Mac and Chloe flirted with each other. But why should I be jealous of Mac and Laura? I’m the one trying to set them up- unless I have feelings for Laura too?

“Anyway, we should probably eat up,” I say. “Don’t want to keep ‘the captain’ waiting, heh.”

“Yeah, true,” Mac chuckles as we tuck in.

Once we’ve finished eating, we start to make our way back to the playing field, and before we’ve even left the coffee shop Laura has playfully linked arms with both of us, giggling as we ‘escort’ her back to the field.

“Ahh, look at me with two hunky guys!” Laura giggles, giving each of our biceps a quick squeeze in turn. I glance over at Mac, but much to my surprise, he actually grimaces at Laura’s touch. Sensing an opportunity, I tentatively wrap an arm around the blonde girl’s tiny waist, smiling and feeling a tingle flow throughout my whole body as Laura sighs happily and leans in close to me.

The rest of the training session only lasts an hour before Paul sends us home with the promise that the final team will be announced later in the week. Feeling pretty hot and tired from the day’s exertions, Mac and I head toward the exit of the field, but we’re quickly intercepted by our lunchtime friend.

“Hey guys!” Laura giggles as she again links her arms with ours. “You both looked great out there, hehe!”

“Umm, I literally dropped a ball that was going at about, like, one mile an hour,” Mac retorts.

“Maybe,” Laura says with a smirk. “But you looked great anyway, hehe!” I smile as Mac bashfully chuckles at Laura’s joke, but inside, I feel the jealousy rising within me again.

“What, nothing for me?” I say with a mock pout.

“Ugh, yes, you looked great too, Mr. Insecure!” Laura teases, before releasing Mac and wrapping both of her arms around my bicep and pulling it close to her chest- and more significantly, her soft breasts. My ‘tingles’ intensify as I wrap an arm around the tall girl’s waist, and she slowly slides a hand into the rear pocket of my jeans…

“Laura!” A deep male voice calls from behind us, causing the two of us to hastily let each other go.

“Oh, um, hi Ricky!” Laura says with a nervous giggle as the tall man sends a VERY angry glare in my direction.

“We’re leaving now,” Ricky- who I've only met briefly before, but I know to be Laura’s brother- says, not taking his eyes off me. “Are you still driving back with Sean or do you want a lift with us?”

“No, I’ll drive back with Sean,” Laura replies, before smirking devilishly and turning to face myself and Mac. “Do you guys need a lift anywhere? Seeing as I’m going to be driving…”

“Umm, sure, thanks!” I reply.

“Saves my Oyster card a bit of wear, I guess!” Mac chuckles as we follow Laura to her stepfather’s car, where the forty-something man is waiting for us with a tired look on his face.

“…So I’m a taxi now, am I?” Laura’s stepfather sighs as we approach and climb onto the back seat of the car.

“Oh- umm, if it’s a problem, we can always catch-“ Mac says hesitantly.

“No, no, it’s okay,” the older man chuckles. “If Laura offered you a lift, she can drive you home. AND pay for the petrol.”

“Oh- dad…” Laura moans.

“We’ll chip in a couple of quid for that too,” I say.

“Where are you headed, boys?” Sean asks as he fiddles with the satnav.

“Fulham,” Mac replies.

“Islington,” I say, earning a pained chuckle from the older man.

“Well,” Laura’s stepfather says, “Laura wanted a lesson today, and by god, she’ll get one with this route! I’m Sean, by the way, Sean Ruddock. I don’t think we got the chance to speak today, we were that busy. Well, you two were busy anyway, I spent all my time getting my breath back, heh.”

“Yeah, Paul’s a lot more serious than I was expecting,” I say. “I’m Ian, by the way, Ian Freeman.”

“I’m guessing by your accent that you’re at uni away from home?” Sean asks.

“Erm, kind of,” I chuckle. “I was born in Cardiff, and I lived there the last two years before uni, but I actually grew up in London.”

“Ah, okay,” Sean says. “Why’d you leave London for two years only to come back, though?” I’ve been wondering that myself recently, I think to myself.

“The answer’s sensitive,” Laura hisses before I can reply, silencing her stepfather and filling the car with an awkward silence.

“…And I’m Mac,” my friend says nervously. “I’ve lived in London my whole life, heh.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Sean says as the car pulls out onto the busy streets of London.

With our houses being in opposite directions, it takes a while for the car to drop me back home, but the journey seems to pass quickly, thanks to Laura's stepfather being warm and friendly, and not once committing any gender identity related faux pas- though as the stepfather of a transgender girl, I imagine he's had plenty of practice.

“I’ll message you when I get home,” Laura purrs softly as I get out of the car, making me tingle once again.

As I shut the front door of my flat behind me, though, my head starts to spin as I try to process everything that’s happened today. I went out expecting to play a little cricket for fun, and have been roped onto a team that’s playing in an actual league. I’ve somehow got one of my best friends onto the team as well, and when trying to set him up with another one of my friends, inadvertently ended up possibly starting a relationship with her myself. Not that I find Laura unattractive, of course- god knows she is VERY hot- but the last thing I was thinking about before today was getting into another relationship, not this soon after breaking up with Chloe. So in addition to my work life and my free time, I can add my love life to the list of ‘things I no longer have any control over’…

I spend the rest of the evening doing as little as possible, taking some time for myself to simply relax, but even this stresses me out as the longer I relax, the more I can feel my uni deadlines getting closer and closer, the more I can feel Monday’s meeting with my ‘father’ and his lawyer getting closer and closer, the more I can feel my next photoshoot getting closer and closer…

I try to distract myself from my anxiety with a marathon FIFA and Netflix session, but nothing works. When I go to check my phone, though, I realise that a distraction has been waiting for me the whole time- albeit one I wanted to be distracted from.

‘Hey Ian!’ Laura’s Facebook message reads. ‘Was great hanging out with you today!’ I grimace as I check the timestamp of the message- it was sent over two hours ago, and Laura did say she’d message me after she got home…

‘Hey,’ I type. ‘Was great hanging out with you too. Sorry about the late reply- had my phone on silent.’ I add a ‘blushing’ emoji to my message that will hopefully placate the blonde girl.

‘I’ll let you off this time,’ Laura types with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji that makes me chuckle. ‘Done much this evening?’

‘Not really,’ I reply. ‘Just relaxed, played a bit of FIFA.’

‘You total BOY,’ Laura types with another ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji. I reply with a ‘smug’ emoji that gets a ‘giggling’ one from the blonde girl in reply.

‘You done much this evening?’ I type.

‘Just learning my lines,’ Laura replies. ‘I would’ve laid on my arse all evening playing video games, but A, my sister’s hogging the PlayStation, B, I have things I actually need to do, C, I never liked video games that much, and D, most important of all, my arse is FAR too cute to waste on things like that!’

‘Can’t argue with D,’ I type, earning another ‘giggling emoji’ in reply. ‘Or A, though I don’t have any brothers or sisters so I’m not sure of how things work there. B is fair enough too, though for C you probably just haven’t played the right games.’ I grimace as my ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji is met with a ‘rolling eyes’ one, but Laura immediately follows up with a ‘winking’ emoji that makes me grin.

‘Well FIFA isn’t going to be the right game as I hate football,’ Laura types with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji of her own. ‘Anything that involves cars or guns is also out.’

‘Wow, could you be anymore a GIRL?’ I type with a ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji that earns a ‘smug’ one in reply from Laura.

‘I can only think of one thing,’ Laura types. ‘And as soon as I’m eighteen I am going to get THAT sorted once and for all.’

‘Don’t blame you one bit,’ I type. ‘I guess it’d be insensitive to ask if I can have it now that you won’t be using it?’

‘You total BOY!’ Laura types, making me flinch again before she sends through a barrage of ‘sticking out tongue’ emojis. ‘And yes, it would be insensitive, but you at least get a pass as you know what girls like us go through. Just because you’re going in the opposite direction doesn’t mean you aren’t on the same journey as me. And no, I don’t want your ovaries thank you very much!’ I chuckle both at Laura’s joke and her next ‘sticking out tongue’ emoji.

‘I don’t think they’re much use anymore anyway,’ I type. ‘Not after over 2 years on T.’

‘Same can be said of my THAT,’ Laura types. ‘Lol weird how I can talk about my genitals with you and it doesn’t feel weird?’

‘It does feel a LITTLE weird,’ I reply. ‘But I get what you mean, like, we’re on the same journey, and it’s good to have someone to talk to who actually understands what it’s like when your body is just wrong.’

‘Totally,’ Laura types. ‘I like chatting with you, was great getting lunch together even if we couldn’t talk about THOSE things lol.’

‘Meh, Mac’s cool,’ I type. I begin to type ‘he is also single’, but I delete the message before sending it- Laura may take that as a hint I don’t want to drop, not right now, anyway…

‘He seems nice,’ Laura types. ‘Is Mac his first name or a nickname?’

‘Ehh… Not sure I should tell you, it’s kind of a state secret,’ I reply with a ‘winking’ emoji.

‘Oh come on,’ Laura types. ‘Pleeeeeease?’

‘Oh okay, if you insist,’ I type with a ‘rolling eyes’ emoji that gets a ‘sticking out tongue’ one in reply. ‘His first name is actually Cloud.’

‘LOL!’ Laura types, making me squirm as I feel bad for my friend- I’ve certainly torpedoed any chance he had of dating Laura now, and if I haven’t, I will when I tell her why he’s named what he is…

‘It’s the name of a character from an old videogame,’ I type. ‘His parents were big fans.’

‘OMG that is tragic,’ Laura types with a ‘crying with laughter’ emoji. ‘No wonder he only goes by ‘Mac’!’

‘There are worse names,’ I type. ‘Kayleigh-Ann, for starters.’

‘Meh, Kayleigh-Ann was alright,’ Laura types. ‘Ian is much friendlier, funnier and cuter, though!’

‘Better in every way for being a boy,’ I type. ‘Just like you’re better in every way for being a girl.’

‘Totally,’ Laura types, before sending me through a picture- a photo of her laid on her bed wearing just her bra and her panties, accompanied by a simple message. ‘Are you free tomorrow?’

‘All day,’ I reply, earning a ‘devilish grin’ emoji from the blonde girl that sends tingles down my spine and makes me forget all about my stresses.

Of course, I still have the lawsuit hanging over my head. I still have the stress from my mother and my job, not to mention the intense workload from university. And now I have the cricket team as well. And, of course, I still miss Chloe a lot. But just talking with Laura, the mere chance of intimacy seems to make all of that stress fade into insignificance- even my angst over losing Chloe. After all, she dumped me, and if she gets jealous that I spend all day with another girl, that's her problem, and I'm certainly not going to feel guilty about it. Maybe this does just make me another meat headed boy, ruled by his hormones. If it does, I don’t care. My name IS Ian. I AM a boy. And if a 17-year-old girl with a smoking hot dancer’s body wants to throw herself at me, I’m more than willing to ‘catch’.

Laura and I chat for another half an hour before she needs to get back to learning her lines, leaving me to waste yet more time playing FIFA and trying to finish some coursework, before eventually heading to bed just after 11pm.

I’m woken up just before 8:30am the following morning by the sound of knocking coming from my front door, which confuses my still-tired mind- we don’t usually get deliveries on Sundays, and if we do, they’re never this early. When I open the door, though, it’s not a parcel that greets me.

“Hi!” Laura says with a girlish giggle.

“Oh- umm, hi!” I reply. “You’re kinda early…”

“Well, you did say you were free all day,” Laura reminds me. “…Can I come in?”

“Umm, sure, but I’m kinda not dressed,” I say, gesturing to my dressing gown.

“Well… technically, you’re more dressed than I am, hehe!” Laura giggles as she gestures to her own very short and very light summer dress.

“…If you say so,” I say with a shrug that makes the tall girl giggle again as I let her into the flat. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“Sure, I’ll have a coffee if you’re making one,” Laura replies.

“Oh- I’ve only just woken up, trust me, I’m making one!” I chuckle. “You- you’re looking great today.” And smelling great too, I think to myself as Laura’s summery perfume wafts into my nose.

“Thanks!” Laura replies. “You’re looking good too, dressing gown included!”

“I’ve got bed hair and I haven’t shaved in, like, a week,” I retort. “heh, grandma would kill me if I went to church with this much stubble…”

“Nah, a little bit of stubble suits you,” Laura says. “So does short, scruffy hair. It really works for some boys. Particularly the ones who weren’t always allowed to be boys.”

“Thanks,” I chuckle. “And long hair and make-up suits you, too. Oh- umm, not that- not that I mean you need to wear make-up, just-“

“No- no, I kinda- kinda actually do,” Laura sighs as I sit down with our drinks. “As much oestrogen as I take, it’s never going to disguise the fact that my face is a boy’s face, or, like, the rest of my skeleton is a boy’s… Lucky I do have the option of using make-up as a ‘disguise’, heh.”

“Whereas boys like me grow our own ‘disguise’?” I ask, smirking and feeling the familiar ‘tingle’ as Laura gently strokes the fine stubble on my cheek.

“Mmm,” Laura moans happily, before taking her hand off my cheek and reaching into my dressing gown to gently stroke my chest. “You boys do have it hard in other ways, though.”

“Well, I definitely WOULD-“ I say, before grimacing. “Oh, umm, you- you mean my chest, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s still nice to hear,” Laura replies with a giggle. “You know, I- I actually tried, like, ‘taping’ my chest last night after we spoke… That can’t have been comfortable for you to do it for two years…”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t always use tape,” I say. “There are, like, specialist bandages you can use, and t-shirts built with ‘boys like me’ in mind… Heh, kinda lucky to have been born when I was, in a way.”

“Yeah, I agree,” Laura says with a smile as she keeps stroking my chest. “You can barely even tell the scars are there, you know?”

“That’s good to hear,” I say. “You- did you ever, you know, umm, ‘tape’? Like, at ballet, when you were wearing a leotard or anything?”

“I never really needed to,” Laura shrugged. “I started taking puberty blockers when I was twelve, so, like, yeah. Doctors say it might make it a bit tricky when I have my operation, but- meh. It definitely makes life easier now. You know, a lot of the time I can’t even remember what it was like to be a boy.”

“Well, umm, sorry if I’m, like, reminding you…” I mumble.

“Oh- really, don’t be sorry!” Laura giggles. “You know I love talking with you, Ian. You actually make me feel even more like a girl, in a way.”

“Well, umm, thanks!” I chuckle. “And what you’re doing right now is definitely making me feel more like a boy, heh!”

“Glad to hear it!” Laura chuckles as she continues to play with my pecs. “You know, we kinda have a lot in common, you know? Apart from the obvious, our ‘journey’, we’re both associated with Heavenly Talent, we’ve both got this-“ I smile as Laura lowers my dressing gown to reveal my ‘Fellowship’ tattoo. “Well, I will do, when I’m eighteen, hehe! We’ve both recently lost members of our family-“

“Trust me, my grandmother is no loss, the old hag,” I snort, making Laura giggle.

“…Maybe not QUITE the same,” the blonde girl continues. “We both hate our so-called ‘fathers’, and we’ve both recently become single.”

“So what you’re saying is, we’re a perfect match?” I ask.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Laura purrs, leaning in to give me a gentle kiss on my lips. God, this girl even tastes good…

Our kissing gradually becomes more intense, and it doesn’t take long for me to lose my dressing gown and Laura to discard her dress, though as things become even more heated, both of us suddenly pause as we realise that the way forward for us isn’t exactly obvious.

“Umm…” I say hesitantly.

“Ah- yeah…” Laura says with a grimace. “Talking about ‘forgetting I was ever a boy’, heh…”

“Yeah,” I whisper. “Sorry…”

“It- it’s no big deal,” Laura shrugs. “I mean, you’ve had sex with girls before, right? And I’ve had sex with boys, this doesn’t need to be THAT different, does it? I’ll just, you know, not ‘go’ anywhere you don’t want me to.”

“…And I can just not touch anything you don’t want me to touch?” I ask, smiling sadly as Laura nods. “That doesn’t exactly leave us with a lot…”

“It doesn’t leave us with nothing, either,” Laura purrs as she takes my hand in hers and leads me to my bedroom...

Forty-five minutes later, I have a wide, euphoric smile on my face as Laura and I lay across each other on my bed, both of us only wearing underpants- well, boxer shorts in my case and a skimpy thong in Laura's case.

“Yeah, that- that was more than I was expecting,” I chuckle.

“Totally,” Laura giggles as she rolls over to face me. “Need to get your breath back?”

“…Yeah, just a bit!” I laugh. “I really, really needed that, though. Thank you SO much.”

“You weren’t the only person who had ‘needs’,” Laura giggles. “Thank YOU.”

“You’re welcome,” I chuckle. “So, umm… Does this make us boyfriend and girlfriend? Or, you know, just friends with benefits…”

“How about this,” Laura says with a grin. “It makes us ‘Ian and Laura’ and screw all the other labels anyone wants to put on us. God knows I’ve had to put up with loads over the years. I just want to, you know, be me? I feel I’m entitled to a bit of fun, what with everything I’ve had to put up with.”

“I agree with you 100%,” I say. “We’re young, but not, you know, TOO young, we both know what we’re doing… Where’s the harm in a little casual sex?”

“Exactly,” Laura says. “I- ugh, this’ll sound embarrassing, but- but you know I’ve always kinda had a bit of a thing for you?”

“…I have kinda noticed in the past,” I reply, smiling sympathetically as Laura blushes. “I first noticed, you know, at the magazine shoot we did.”

“When I was wearing that tutu all day?” Laura asks, before grimacing and blushing even more deeply. “Ugh, god…”

“What?” I ask. “You looked good in that tutu. Certainly better than I ever did…”

“Yeah, that’s what I was remembering,” Laura sighs as I frown with confusion. “Your sixteenth birthday? Ms. Fullerton’s birthday tutu, and how I practically stuffed you into it?”

“…Yeah, not my favourite memory, that,” I say, gently stroking Laura’s hair as she buries her face in a pillow. “But it was hardly your fault, right? I mean, you couldn’t have known, right?”

“No, but I know NOW,” Laura protests.

“And that’s what matters,” I say. “…You do also know I play a lot of videogames and religiously watch Star Trek, right?”

“Well- nobody’s perfect,” Laura giggles. “My last boyfriend spent most of his free time playing basketball, heh.”

“…Which is slightly better than being a nerd,” I retort.

“Better for him, maybe,” Laura shrugs. “This isn’t, like, some cheap high school movie, there’s no reason the nerd can’t get with the cheerleader.”

“…Do you still have the uniform?” I ask, smirking as Laura rolls her eyes.

“No, I had to give it back to the school,” Laura replies. “And besides, it’s not like you’re not on a sports team, right? The cricket team?”

“Oh- yeah,” I chuckle. “Will you be cheering me on if we play any matches?”

“If I have nothing better to do that weekend,” Laura replies with a stuck-out tongue. “Nah, seriously, it’ll be cool, you know? Think my brother’s made the team as well, so I’ll have zero extra reasons to go along, hehe!”

“Heh,” I chuckle, before frowning as a knock comes from the front door. “…Did you invite a friend around?”

“You wish,” Laura snorts, giving my muscular thigh a quick squeeze as I get off my bed and pull my dressing gown back on. “You expecting a delivery?”

“Not at 9:30 on Sunday morning, I’m not,” I reply as I open the door, before freezing to the spot as I find myself staring into the angry blue eyes of Laura’s brother. “Umm… Hi?”

“Laura?” the tall man yells.

“Ricky?” Laura replies from my bedroom, making me cringe- if only she’d kept quiet…

I brace myself for a torrent of verbal abuse, but before I know what’s happening, I feel a hard shove in my chest and I’m laid out flat on the floor. I barely have time to get my breath back before I’m lifted up, only to again be roughly thrown onto my living room floor, my head only missing our coffee table by a few inches. Once again, I’m roughly lifted to my feet, only this time, I’m not thrown back down- instead, I double over in pain as Laura’s brother punches me hard in my stomach. As the pain starts to fill my body, though, so does another feeling- anger.

How dare this man come into my home and assault me? How dare he rough me up just because his sister and I have slept together- something we’re both legally allowed to do. And how dare he think he can push me around just because he’s bigger than me- especially when I have two years of boxing training with Neil's dad fresh in my mind…

I fight my way to my feet, only to be grabbed again by the taller man, but this time, instead of allowing myself to be thrown, I plant my feet in a boxer’s stance and keep my balance, which clearly surprises Laura’s brother. Undeterred, he throws a punch at my head, which I instinctively block, which only seems to anger Ricky further. He rears back and swings a wide, haymaker punch with his right hand, and I can’t help but grin- no one who knows how to fight ever throws a punch like that.

I step forward, avoiding the fist, and deflect the punch with my elbow, before stepping forward again and putting all of my weight into one left-handed punch that lands squarely on the right-hand side of Ricky’s ribcage- right on top of his liver. I try not to tremble as Ricky’s eyes widen in pure fury, before narrowing as he lets out a low whine of pain and slumps to the floor, clutching his side. I grin as I stand over him, my body flooding with adrenaline and endorphins, but my euphoria comes crashing down when a loud screech comes from the direction of my bedroom.

“What the fuck are you two doing!?” Laura screams as she emerges from my bedroom.

“Me!?” I snort. “He’s the one who barged in here and started throwing me around. He’s lucky I don’t call the police!”

“D- don’t touch my sister,” Ricky snarls as he gingerly drags himself back to my feet.

“Ugh!” Laura growls. “You’re both total BOYS!” I grimace as Laura storms back into my bedroom, before sighing and turning my attention to my attacker, who is still clearly in a lot of pain.

“Think you’d better leave now,” I say firmly.

“Not without my sister,” Ricky grumbles as he drags himself to his feet.

“She can make her own decisions,” I say bluntly.

“Yeah,” Ricky snorts. “The wrong decisions.”

“That’s not your decision to make,” I retort.

“Do you have any younger sisters?” Ricky asks me, making me pause.

“…I’m an only child,” I mumble.

“Lucky you,” Ricky snorts.

“Luckier than Laura, that’s for certain,” I say, making the older man roll his eyes before sighing.

“…Maybe,” Ricky shrugs. “But if you ever hurt her, I WILL hurt you.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve not exactly got a great track record there,” I snort. “Now piss off, or I WILL call the police.”

“Consider yourself warned,” Ricky snorts. “But before I go, ask yourself this- I never threatened Laura’s ex-boyfriend the way I’m threatening you now. I’ve had to issue a lot of threats over the last few weeks. Have a think about why I needed to.” I stare angrily at Ricky as he leaves the flat and slams the door behind him, before sighing- although what he’s said sticks firmly in my mind. Did he really just slut shame his younger sister? Is what he implied about Laura true, or is he lying to try to scare me away from her?

I barely have any time to process all of this, though, before my thoughts are disrupted by another slammed door- this time, my bedroom door.

“L- Laura?” I call after the once again fully clothed girl.

“You total thug,” Laura spits.

“Oh, wh- he barged in here and started chucking me around!” I say in a raised, incredulous voice. “I mean, you expect me to not defend myself? It’s not like I invited him, not after what we were just doing in there!” I flinch as Laura angrily raises a finger at me, before sighing, shaking her head and flopping down onto my sofa.

“…No, I guess you didn’t,” Laura sighs. “I just- ugh. I HATE it when people fight.”

“Yeah, I’m not a fan of it either,” I sigh as I sit down opposite my friend. “But, I guess, being a boy isn’t all, heh, football and videogames…”

“And it’s not like girls don’t fight either,” Laura says with a tired chuckle.

“Yeah, but girls don’t usually fight six-foot-tall guys who look like they belong in the Marines,” I snort.

“…He was actually in the Army,” Laura says. “For ages. He’s at uni now, training to be a teacher. Heh, I doubt he’d die of embarrassment if any of his squaddie friends found out- umm…”

“That he was flattened by a girl?” I snort. “Or even an ex-girl? God knows they’d probably think they were both the same.”

“Yeah, probably,” Laura snorts. “And I speak from experience when I say that the kids he’d teach would as well. Heh, they'd probably be even more transphobic.”

“Yep, probably,” I say, before letting out a long sigh as my hands start to shake. “…And I think I’m going to need a lot more coffee. Or a shot of adrenaline…”

“You- you just sit there, I’ll go and get some coffee,” Laura says softly, returning a short while later with a mug of the hot brown liquid that I eagerly sip. “I put a pretty big pile of sugar in that, I hope it’s not too sweet?”

“No, I prefer it with at least two sugars,” I chuckle. “And I’m sorry… I know this isn’t what you wanted to happen when you dropped around here, heh.”

“Meh, it’s not THAT bad,” Laura shrugs. “I get to hang out with a friend, don’t I?”

“Well- true, I guess,” I reply, before sighing. “…’Friend’ or ‘friend with benefits’?”

“Maybe- maybe we should stick to ‘friend’ for now,” Laura replies with a smile, making me sigh- as much stress as I ‘relieved’ just now, I know it’s all going to come rushing back soon enough- but given what just happened, sex with Laura is always going to be weird from this point forward, even if I choose to believe that Ricky was lying about his ‘threats’. And to be honest, it was more than a little weird to begin with. “…But I’m still not going to play FIFA with you.”

“Like I said, I’ve got other videogames,” I shrug, earning an eye roll from my friend, before I smirk as I spot a small box on the bottom of our games shelf. “…Have you ever tried VR before?”

“Umm, VR?” Laura asks. “Like, virtual reality? No, don’t think so, why?”

“Lee’s left behind his PlayStation VR helmet,” I explain. “And I know he’s got plenty of games for it, too.”

“Umm, okay…” Laura says in an uncertain voice that makes me cringe- she came around here looking for ‘fun’ of a different kind, after all, and even though we’ve definitely had ‘fun’ and her brother’s kinda spoiled the mood, the fact is that I, the nerd, have just suggested that the cheerleader prom queen play videogames with me.

“Or- or if you’d rather do something else, we could-“ I stammer, before being interrupted.

“No- no, VR sounds fun,” Laura shrugs. “Won’t know until I try it, heh!”

“You’re sure?” I ask.

“Yeah, of course!” Laura giggles. “I came over here to hang out, and my idiot brother has kinda ruined the moment for what we were doing before, heh.” Great minds think alike, I think to myself with a smirk.

“Okay,” I chuckle. “I’ll pick out a game, then- ehh, maybe not ‘Star Trek Bridge Simulator’.”

“It is a bit tragic that you own that game,” Laura says, making me fidget a bit- Chloe would never have said anything like that. My mum probably would’ve, though…

“Okay…” I say. “We’ll forget Doom VFR and Blood & Money then… Ah! Astro Bot.”

“Umm… That sounds kinda Star Trek-y,” Laura says.

“Trust me, it’s not,” I laugh as I set up the headset.

“Well- okay then, if you say so,” Laura says. “Do you have an Amazon Prime account?”

“Umm, I do, yeah,” I reply. “Why?”

“Because after this, we’re watching two episodes of the latest season of The Angels,” Laura says smugly. “As a sort-of payback.”

“Fair enough,” I shrug. “I actually kinda like the show, and not just ‘cause I know a lot of the people on the screen, heh.”

“Show off,” Laura giggles as she puts on the helmet and I start up the game for her.

Even though the rest of the morning’s activities are very different from the start of the morning, in an odd way, they’re no less fun- Laura admits she had a lot of fun playing the game (even if VR did freak her out a bit to begin with), and while I’d previously seen the episodes of The Angels that Laura selected, I enjoyed rewatching them nonetheless. However, both of us have the most fun when we switch the TV and the PlayStation off and just sit around chatting- something I didn’t realise just how much I needed until now.

“You know,” I mumble, “when I saw you at the cricket yesterday, my- my first instinct was actually to set you up with Mac.”

“Umm, okay then,” Laura says, fidgeting awkwardly in her seat. “What made you change your mind?”

“Well, first, and most importantly, the fact that you’re hotter than hell,” I say, smirking as a smug smile spreads across my friend’s face. “Second… Ugh, this’ll sound crap…”

“Go on, I won’t be offended,” Laura says.

“…I kinda- kinda had it in my mind that it’d make Chloe mad,” I sigh. “I know, I know, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be talking about another girl when- ugh. Should I stick my head in the door frame now?”

“No- no,” Laura sighs. “I kinda- I’m kinda hung up on Kain too. Even if I am the one who ended it, heh.”

“Even more in common,” I chuckle.

“Heh, yep, even if it is just the ways in which we’re kinda messed up,” Laura sighs.

“I think we can safely say that we’d be great for each other,” I say. “And that’s why we should never get together, heh.”

“I totally agree,” Laura giggles. “But I’d really like to still be friends. And no, not just because I want to get into all of your student parties when I’m eighteen.”

“In November, I remember,” I say, making my friend giggle. “So… Friends WITHOUT benefits, then?”

“Just ‘cause we’re a boy and a girl, doesn’t mean we have to have sex every time we see each other,” Laura shrugs, making me fidget as I remember what her brother told me- something I don't intend to repeat to her. “Fun as it was, heh.”

“So… Friends with occasional benefits, then?” I ask.

“Works for me,” Laura says. “Until you end up getting a serious girlfriend, anyway.”

“Umm, what makes you think the 5’ 7” Welsh nerd is going to get a girlfriend before the six feet tall cheerleader and supermodel gets a boyfriend?” I ask.

“Well, I think you’re sexy,” Laura shrugs. “So will every other girl with a working pair of eyes. And you’ll soon forget all about Chloe, I guarantee it.”

“I wish I was as confident as you,” I chuckle tiredly.

“Girls also find shyness sexy,” Laura says with a smirk. “Sometimes, anyway. As long as you’re not TOO shy in bed. Which you aren’t.”

“You’re telling me all this like I’ve never been a girl before,” I say with a snort of laughter.

“That’s because you haven’t,” Laura says with a grin that I immediately mirror.

Laura sticks around until just after lunchtime, and even though we only spend the time chatting and watching TV, I find I’d genuinely forgotten just how much fun and how relaxing it is to just sit around on a Sunday morning chatting with a good friend- like Chloe and I would often do on Sunday mornings. Sure, I could try chatting to Lee, or Ben, Mac or any of my other friends, but none of them are as good listeners as Laura. Maybe it's a boy/girl thing, I don't know. And even if we don’t take any more ‘benefits’ from each other, I’m very glad to be able to call Laura my friend, and if others think of me as somehow being less masculine for enjoying gossiping with a girl, then so what? I don’t need validation from closed-minded people like that. My name IS Ian and I AM a man. Having a female friend doesn’t change that.

However, it also doesn’t solve my immediate problems, either. Less than an hour after Laura left, I found myself missing her, then almost immediately afterward, missing Chloe as well. To try to distract myself, I started doing some university work. To distract myself from that, I read up on the rules of cricket. And to distract myself from that, I read some of my lawyer’s notes ahead of our meeting tomorrow. And to distract myself from that, I look at the file for my next modelling job. And to distract myself from that, I DON’T call home, despite it being Sunday, when I usually do so…

By the time Lee returns later in the evening, I’m curled up on the sofa, too physically and mentally exhausted to even move- something that doesn’t go unnoticed by my flat mate.

“Alright, mate?” Lee asks as he drops his bag and sits down in his usual chair. “How was cricket?”

“Meh, it was okay,” I shrug. “How was Cardiff?”

“Same as always,” Lee says. “…Have you been playing on my PlayStation VR helmet today?”

“Eh, kind of,” I reply. “Actually, a girl came round, and-“

“And the best you could manage was playing in VR?” Lee asks with a snort of laughter. Okay, I think to myself. Maybe THIS is why I need a female friend, if not a girlfriend…

“It was Laura,” I explain. “From the coffee shop? Also in the Fellowship with me?”

“What, blonde hair, blue eyes, got a tall, skinny body that makes most guys unable to stand up for half an hour?” Lee asks, making me roll my eyes.

“Thanks for reminding me that’s not a ‘problem’ I have,” I scoff. And for reminding me of the one thing I need distracting from the most…

“I’ll apologise for being insensitive if you say to me truthfully that you didn’t at least snog her,” Lee says.

“No comment,” I snort.

“’No comment’ means ‘yes’,” Lee says. “Did you shag her, then?”

“Definitely no comment,” I snort, before rolling onto my back. “Ugh, I- I’ve just got a lot on my mind right now, you know, work, uni, this fucking lawsuit…”

“The other, more traditional definition of fucking,” Lee says, smirking as I roll my eyes. “And to answer your next inevitable question, no, I didn’t see Chloe, but yes, I still expect you to put a quid in the jar.” I roll my eyes as Lee takes a half-full jar of coins off the coffee table and waves it in my face, before taking a pound coin out of my wallet and dropping it in.

“You too, you brought her up,” I say.

“Fair enough,” Lee says as he drops a pound coin in the jar as well. “It’s going toward the flat’s PS5 fund anyway.”

“And for the record, we spent most of our time talking,” I say.

“Meh, fair enough,” Lee shrugs. “How did she end up here, anyway? Booty call?”

“She was watching us at cricket practice,” I reply.

“Yeah…” Lee says. “You do know there’s only one reason why a girl would watch a sports team practice, right?” I open my mouth, ready to call Lee a ‘BOY’ in the same manner as Laura, before realising that it’d be more than a bit inappropriate for me to say it. I hope it’d be inappropriate, anyway…

“For what it’s worth, I did try to set her up with Mac,” I say.

“And then decided to keep her for yourself?” Lee asks. “Can’t say I blame you. Should’ve tried to set her up with Dan, THAT would’ve been a sight!”

“It would literally be Sheldon and Penny,” I chuckle. “As opposed to Penny and- heh, whatever the hell I am.”

“Leonard?” Lee suggests. “That story ended happily…”

“Yeah- I doubt it,” I snort.

“I dunno,” Lee shrugs. “He’s short- umm, shorter than average for a man. He had a dragon of a mother who treated him like an experiment and an otherwise useless dad. He lived with a room-mate who was much taller and smarter than him but less successful with girls-“

“Yes, yes, okay,” I snort. “But me and Laura aren’t getting together any time soon.”

“Pity,” Lee shrugs. “You look like you could use some ‘all natural stress relief’.”

“No comment,” I say, earning a laugh from Lee as he switches the television on.

Needless to say, while it’s good to have some company, Lee isn't as good a listener as Laura, and by the time I head to bed, I feel like I’m right back at square one. The weekend was fun, but it’s also now over, and Monday is looming, with even more stress than that day normally brings...

The following morning, I’m still in bed when Lee leaves for university as I don’t have any classes until the afternoon. We’re supposed to use the morning for reading and doing coursework, but this morning, sadly, it’s not an option for me, as I’m reminded when I eventually get up, shower, shave off what little facial stubble I have and dress in a smart shirt, tie and trousers for the morning ahead.

A short while later, I’m standing in the very opulent lobby of my lawyer's firm, where I’m greeted by the woman who will hopefully today ease at least one of my stresses.

“Hello Ian,” Janet Bean, my new lawyer, says as she greets me with a professional handshake. “Sorry to keep you waiting, your father and his lawyer have only just arrived.”

“That’s okay,” I sigh. “I just want this over and done with as soon as possible.

“I know you do,” Janet says softly. “But I’m confident that we can put proceedings to an end today. I have more than enough to make it not worth your father or his lawyer’s time to proceed, and enough to really cost them a lot of money if they do persist out of spite.”

“Well- okay,” I say. “And can I ask one favour? Please don’t call him ‘my father’. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have one. His name is Craig.”

“…Very well,” Janet says. “Craig and his lawyer are upstairs, please follow me.” I keep a stoic expression on my face as I follow Janet to the lift, then to the room where Craig and Richard (his lawyer) are waiting for me. Craig’s eyes widen with anger as I enter the room, but I maintain the stoic look on my face, even though inside, my stomach is churning.

“Good morning,” Richard says with a smug smile. “You called us and requested a meeting. I assume you’re ready to discuss a settlement?”

“In a sense,” Janet replies.

“So then, how much are you putting on the table?” Richard asks.

“Nothing,” Janet replies confidently. “We will not be paying you a single penny. You will immediately withdraw this lawsuit, or we will begin both civil and criminal proceedings against the two of you and your firm.” Even though Craig and Richard both laugh at Janet’s defiance, I don’t squirm- this is the woman retained by Joshua Benedict, after all, so she must know what she’s doing.

“Really?” Richard snorts. “Do you know exactly who you’re dealing with?”

“Yes,” Janet replies bluntly. “I also know what I am dealing with, namely a malicious lawsuit with no grounding in legal fact, something that judges tend to frown on, in case you weren’t aware.”

“…I beg your pardon?” Richard asks, the wind having been suddenly knocked out of his sails.

“The allegation of fraud is clearly bogus,” Janet explains. “Any and all acting or dance lessons bought for my client are legally treated as gifts, and as such do not fall under the category of ‘fraud’, and as they were almost all paid for before his sixteenth birthday, he has no legal liability for them anyway.”

“…Oh,” Richard mumbles.

“Furthermore,” Janet says, “your claim of emotional distress is blatantly bogus. Ian had no contact with his grandmother for over a year before her death, and witness statements from Ian’s mother-“ I start to smirk as Janet slides a folder across to her counterpart. “-and his maternal grandmother-“ My smile gets wider as another folder is slid across the desk. “-Speak to how the deceased would regularly belittle Ian and treat him as though he was a young child even when well into his teens. Any further claim of emotional distress can only be tied to his choice to live with his grandmother from the age of sixteen. And, as he was sixteen when he made this choice, he was legally more than entitled to do so. I assume there are no claims of emotional distress that are tied to Ian’s gender identity, as I’m sure you’re aware that this is a protected characteristic under English law, and as such legally unactionable.”

“…This isn’t over,” Richard says. “We can go before a judge, and-“

“And we would present this as evidence,” Janet says, sliding a much larger file across the desk. “Testimonies from Ian’s counsellor and friends about the emotional distress he has been put under not just by this lawsuit, but as a result of his upbringing. Go before a judge and we’ll show how Ian is the real victim here in seconds, and we will sue for costs. Go before a jury, and we’ll make your client out to be the worst father since Josef Fritzl, and we will countersue, and we WILL win.”

“How dare you!” Craig suddenly bellows, startling not just myself and Janet, but his own lawyer as well. “After everything we did for you as a child, you ungrateful little shit!”

“’For’ me?” I scoff. “How about everything you did TO me?”

“Gentlemen, please,” Janet says, calming both of us down. “We want this lawsuit to go away. Plain and simple, just- be gone. Withdraw it now, and you can walk out of here and not worry about us again. Take it forward, however, and you WILL lose.”

“…I need some time to discuss this with my client,” Richard mumbles. Janet silently nods, before leading me out of the room, where I let out a nervous laugh.

“Okay, then,” I chuckle. “Where was THAT the last few months?”

“It’s actually very hard to prove that a lawsuit’s malicious,” Janet explains. “But all you need to do is convince a judge, and the way you do that is with evidence, loads and loads of evidence, that your friends and family were all too happy to provide.”

“Well- thanks,” I chuckle. “But da- Craig will probably just be stubborn and insist we go to court anyway.”

“Yes, well, I wasn’t trying to convince Craig,” Janet explains. “I was trying to convince his lawyer. Make it more trouble than it’s worth to continue with the lawsuit.”

“But Craig could just find another lawyer?” I ask.

“Then we’ll do the same to them, and the lawyer after that, and the lawyer after that until he gets the message,” Janet says, filling me with dread- I just want this over and done with…

Seconds later, though, the door to the office opens and Richard steps out, followed by a very subdued-looking Craig.

“After consulting with my client,” Richard mumbles, “we have decided not to pursue our lawsuit any further.”

“Good decision,” Janet says, politely shaking both Richard and Craig’s hands as they skulk away- though before they reach the lift, Craig turns around and looks me straight in the eye.

“As far as I’m concerned,” Craig says in a low, angry voice. “I don’t have a daughter, and I never did.”

“Finally,” I snort. “Something we can agree on.” I smile smugly as Craig scowls, his face reddening as he and his lawyer walk away, hopefully out of my life forever.

“Well, I think we’re done here,” Janet says softly. “Are you sure you don’t want to pursue a countersuit? I can’t guarantee a big payout, or even a victory, but-“

“No- no, thank you,” I say. “I just- I just want to never have to see that man again.”

“I understand,” Janet whispers.

“And thank you, really, for everything you’ve done,” I say with a happy sigh. “God knows this is a real weight off my mind, if I was still represented by Ross- ugh, God knows.”

“From what you’ve told me, he was more focused on the countersuit than actually dealing with the lawsuit,” Janet says. “And I’m not going to comment any further there, only to say that you’re welcome, and it has been a genuine pleasure to help you, Ian. And I hope things start to get better for you.”

“Thanks,” I say quietly. “I’m sure they will.”

That was, of course, a lie. I wasn’t sure at all, even though the lawsuit was no longer hanging over my head and my so-called ‘father’ was firmly in my past. I should’ve felt better, victorious, even, but I didn’t. All I could think about was uni, and my modelling work, and the band, the cricket team, my mother, Chloe, Laura… And the fact that I’m still very, very much ‘incomplete’ as a man.

Fortunately, I did have at least one person who I could talk to about anything.

“…It definitely does sound like you’ve had a hectic few days,” Dr Phillips says softly. “I certainly can’t blame you for relaxing and just killing time over the weekend, everybody needs to have some time to themselves when they just do nothing, not even hobbies.”

“I still feel like- like I’m wasting time if I do that, though,” I sigh. “When I was a kid, my mother was always on me to practice dance or stuff like that if I ever had any, you know, ‘empty’ time.”

“Well, I’d like to think we’ve long since established that your mother was and still is not a positive influence in your life,” Dr Phillips says, making me smirk. “Though I’m worried about the other influences in your life that aren’t quite as obviously negative.”

“What, you mean, like, the band?” I ask. “Or the cricket team? But they’re my friends?”

“Nonetheless, they may be a source of stress without either you or them realising it,” Dr Phillips advises. “All your life, you’ve been conditioned by your mother to never say no, to go along whenever you’re told to do something you really don’t want to do. You need to learn that it’s okay to simply say ‘no’. Even if you’ve previously said ‘yes’, it’s also okay to simply change your mind. Sure, your friends may be disappointed, but it won’t last.”

“Well- okay,” I sigh.

“I’m also going to temporarily up your antidepressant dosage,” Dr Phillips says. “Just for a month. If you feel yourself becoming stressed, if it all becomes too much, take an additional tablet per dose. And don’t be afraid to simply talk to someone, whether that’s me, your grandmother or a friend. There’s nothing unmanly about needing to talk, and there’s certainly nothing unmanly about admitting that you need help.”

“Well- okay,” I sigh again.

“The modelling job won’t last forever,” Dr Phillips advises. “The cricket team will only be until the end of summer, and even university will only be for another couple of years. All of your sources of stress will eventually go away. You may even look back later in your life and remember these days fondly.”

“Hopefully things won’t get THAT bad,” I snort, making my counsellor smile.

“Only if you let them,” Dr Phillips says as I force a smile on my face. One thing’s for certain- the stress can't go away quick enough...

“It’s weird how this has become just, like, normal again,” Lee says as we pull on our coats and head out of the flat, locking the door behind us as we go. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love university, but you know? I kinda, like, got used to it being summer, having all the time to myself… Am I making any sense?”

“Maybe a little,” I reply, smirking as my flat mate rolls his eyes. “But I kinda get what you mean, I think.” Even though my summer was a hell of a lot busier than yours…

Like Lee, I’m looking forward to getting back to university, though unlike him, it’s less about my coursework and more to do with the other 'work' I did over summer. During the extra-long break, both Lee and I opted to live in our student flat in London rather than return to Cardiff. We did make the occasional trip back to Wales though, to see Neil and Rob mainly, but the majority of our time was spent in England. There were many reasons for this- my main reasons were that other than Neil, Rob and Grandma, I had no one to return to in Cardiff. Okay, technically you could include my mother in that list, but the more time passes, the less contact we have with each other, and that’s an arrangement that more than works for me. One person you certainly can’t include in the list of ‘people who live in Cardiff that I want to see or vice versa’, though, is Chloe. We’ve not spoken at all since our breakup other than the odd interaction on Facebook, and even then it’s just the occasional ‘like’ on each other’s posts, we've certainly not exchanged any words, not even in the comments section of said posts.

However, it’s not like I have hundreds of girls waiting for me in London, either. After our first morning of 'fun' was ruined by her brother, Laura and I have kept to our promise to be ‘friends without/with occasional benefits’ for the time being, especially since just days after our morning together, she tried (and very nearly succeeded) to seduce the captain of our cricket team. I think that ‘incident’ proved to be a turning point for Laura, who seems to be finally getting the help she needs following the incident with her ‘father’ last Christmas.

…Help that I’m also getting, thanks to both my friends and the professional support I’ve continued to get from Dr Phillips over the summer. They’ve helped me to realise that I am not beholden to either of my parents, that I owe my father nothing for the years of borderline neglect he gave me, and that I am under no obligation to follow the path that my mother has laid out for me. Slowly, I am beginning to realise that they’re all correct, and that I do have the right to be my own man… Though after the summer I’ve had, that's something that's a lot easier said than done.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve had plenty of work to occupy my time over the summer. Despite their ever-growing roster of models, Heavenly Talent’s prestige means that it almost always has more demand for work than it can fulfil, so all throughout summer I was either scheduled to work on jobs or called up last minute to fill in for other models. The net result of this is I spent a good chunk of my summer holiday travelling all throughout London (and often to other parts of the country too) and spending hot summer days indoors in front of cameras. This had the added (and, in fairness, welcome) effect of increasing the size of my bank balance, but has also increased my following on social media platforms, which has led to yet more money from paid promotions (minus the agency's cut, of course)… and also the size of my stress levels.

It’s not like the work was particularly difficult- okay, I was on my feet most of the time, but I’m pretty fit, so that’s not much of an issue, and the clothes I was modelling were all unambiguously masculine rather than androgynous thanks to some strict 'conditions' my agent at HT (under the orders of Joshua Benedict himself) imposed on every job I did. However, every time I heard the camera’s shutter close, every time the flash went off, I pictured my mother looking on disapprovingly- or even worse, approvingly. And in every other flash, I pictured Chloe’s face, the way she smiled… the way she scowled at me when we split up…

And it’s not just work that’s been keeping me busy either. Most weekends during the summer, I was stood on a cricket field with ten of my friends (assuming you include Laura’s brother, who still doesn’t fully trust me). Paul (our captain)’s enthusiasm for the game quickly caught on with the rest of the team, and we finished solidly in the top third of the amateur league we were signed up to. I'd be lying, though, if I said that I shared the enthusiasm enjoyed by the rest of the team. It’s not that I hate the sport, and it is good exercise, but all throughout the summer break it was like every time I wanted to sit down and have some time to myself, or watch a movie or play a videogame, I was being dragged back out to a cricket match, or practice- or to work…

Worst of all is that thanks to Reuben Hartley and Marley Fullerton being part of the team, I had to hang out with their girlfriends too- their girlfriends being Abbey-Gayle Simpson and Georgie Powell respectively, which naturally also meant that they dragged Brooke and Maisie along with them too. And while I did spend the vast majority of my time interacting with the boys (and Georgie being mercifully quieter than I remember), I still at times felt like I was fifteen again, forced to hang out with people I couldn’t stand, with a hollow smile on my face and nothing but stress eating away at my stomach… A stomach that still, frustratingly, contains the parts with which I was born.

Logically, it seems like it shouldn’t affect me- after all, I had top surgery last summer, which was much more significant when it comes to my day-to-day life, and thanks to my hormone regimen I haven’t had any 'monthly troubles' in ages. However, not a day goes by when I’m not aware that I am not like any of the other guys that I know, especially when changing for the cricket team- even Stuart is ‘built’ differently to me now. And even worse than that, not a day goes by when I’m not reminded that I still have a uterus and ovaries packed into my insides. I should have had a hysterectomy this summer to ‘correct’ this ‘defect’, but thanks to my other responsibilities, that’s had to be put on hold for now. And every day that my ‘defect’ remains inside me, I feel my stress levels just grow higher and higher, to the point that I almost wish I could take my favourite giraffe toy with me everywhere I go.

Thankfully, though, today is the first of October, which means two things- firstly, it’s autumn, and cricket season is over for the year, and also that university is very much back. Last week was fresher's week, which was some of the most fun I've had in a while. Unlike with my summer obligations, I needed no persuading to help out welcoming the freshers to the university, and I was especially eager to help represent the LGBT society. Especially because, as with most things in life, the best thing about being transgender- for me, anyway- is the number of friends I make with whom I have something in common, on whom I can rely and who can rely on me for support. Hopefully, I’ll make even more friends like that this year. I may even meet a girl who’ll become more than a friend. For now, though, I’m more than happy to be back studying a topic I enjoy and hanging out with my two existing friends.

“Alright mate?” Mac asks as we rendezvous outside the main entrance of the university.

“Yeah, not bad thanks, you?” I reply.

“Gradually getting back into the swing of things,” Mac chuckles. “Have you had a look at our first assignment yet?”

“Ehh… I’ve had a look at it, not started it yet though,” I reply. “Still trying to get my breath back after summer, heh!”

“Yeah, I can see how it’d be exhausting,” Mac says with a snort of laughter. “Getting paid to hang out with models all summer…”

“Heh,” I chuckle, barely suppressing a growl of irritation. Thankfully, before I can retort, we’re interrupted by the arrival of the third member of our ‘gang’.

“Hey guys!” Ben says enthusiastically.

“Hi mate!” Mac says as I bite my lip before deciding to let Mac's 'models' comment go. “Get up to much last night?”

“Meh, the usual,” Ben replies. “Reading, coursework prep, played a bit of Control. You?”

“Pretty much the same,” Mac replies with a chuckle. “Watched a few more of those Endgame videos, you know, the audience reacting to things like Cap picking up the hammer?”

“Yep,” Ben replies with a knowing grin. “Have you seen the credits one yet? Never seen crowds go that mental for CREDITS before.”

“I’ll check it out when I get home,” Mac says, fidgeting in a way that's very unusual for him.

"Assuming we don't get overloaded with more coursework, anyway," Ben says with a chuckle as the three of us head to our first lecture of the day.

After a morning of taking notes and getting to grips with yet another new kind of image editing software, the three of us head to the cafeteria for some much-needed refreshment.

“So then,” Ben asks as we eagerly wolf down our burgers and fries, “had a chance to check out any of the new freshers yet? Seeing as you’re both, well, single?”

“Umm, not yet,” I reply, frowning as my stomach grumbles at the mention of my ‘single’ status. “Might do tonight, we’ve got, like, an LGBT society meeting to welcome the new freshers tonight.”

“Which might be a bit awkward, seeing as you’re straight,” Mac says, smirking nervously- which, again, is unusual for him- as I roll my eyes.

“Why- if you don’t mind me asking, that is,” Ben says hesitantly. “But why- why is, you know, ‘T’ included with ‘L’, ‘G’ and ‘B’ anyway? From everything you’ve told me and everything I’ve read, gender identity doesn’t have anything to do with sexuality, does it?”

“Not in my experience,” I reply. “But our experience of bigotry is almost always the same, so that’s why we’ve got to, you know, stick together. Solidarity, that sort of thing."

“So, the society is kinda like a safe space for everyone?” Mac asks, smiling as I nod.

“I’m sure I explained this last year, but yep, pretty much,” I reply.

“What about, you know, women- well, ‘L’s who feel that ‘T’ shouldn’t be included?” Ben asks. “Like, those women who marched at Pride last year?"

“It- it doesn’t really affect ME much, for obvious reasons,” I reply, smiling sympathetically as Ben bites his lip and tries not to blush. “But, like, some of my friends have said they’ve had some hassle… eh. I’m kinda in a unique position, actually, especially with all the idiots in America- and far too many over here, too- who say that people should only use toilets that match their birth gender. Usually women, usually TERFs who say that. They’d be pretty surprised if I went into the ladies’ with them, that’s for sure!”

“Heh, nice,” Mac chuckles. “Never had any problem from, you know, guys about the same thing?”

“Not even once,” I reply with a shrug. “I don’t doubt there are some guys out there who would have a problem, but the only problem I’ve really had is gay guys at the society being disappointed that I’m straight, heh. And even then, many of them aren’t put off by the fact that I’m trans.” I smile as I gesture to the tattoo on my arm, which is clearly visible under the sleeve of my t-shirt.

“What- what do you guys do at the society, anyway?” Ben asks.

“Umm, well, it’s not like we have an orgy or anything,” I reply, grimacing as my friend again blushes. “We just, you know, hang out, have a few drinks, talk to each other… It’s basically a safe space where we can come and be free from discrimination, mostly.”

“That’s cool,” Ben says, looking at his food contemplatively. “I’ll just be at home tonight with Control to keep me company, heh.”

“Heh,” I chuckle. “I would, you know, invite you as a guest, but, well, safe space and all… Sorry. I doubt you’d enjoy it THAT much either, heh.”

“S’okay,” Ben shrugs.

“And if you’d invited me, I’d have to have passed too,” Mac says, a smug (but again, oddly awkward) smile spreading across his face. “I doubt my girlfriend would like it too much.”

“Oh- you kept that quiet!” I say. “How long have you been seeing her?”

“Only a couple of weeks,” Mac replies. “She’s a fresher at a- at another college in London. We started chatting, and well, one thing kinda led to another and- heh, yep.”

“Are we ever going to meet her, then?” Ben asks, making Mac laugh nervously yet again.

“…Give us some time first,” my tall blond friend chuckles. “Brand-new relationship, so want to, you know, make sure everything’s okay before I introduce her to- well, my mates.”

“Fair enough,” I shrug. “Maybe pick a day when Dan’s unavailable, then? Unless she thinks a three-hour Twilight Imperium session in the middle of summer with no windows open is an ideal date?”

“You’re never letting that one go, are you?” Ben asks with a sigh as I’m reminded of one of the more uncomfortable days from this August just gone that didn't involve a camera or a cricket bat.

“…I barely got ANY free time over summer,” I protest. “Spending half of it sweating to death listening to Dan go on about the lore of every single species in the game wasn’t how I wanted to spend a whole afternoon of it.”

“I’d have been more interested in him explaining why he didn’t like deodorant,” Mac snorted. “But meh, whatever. Umm, my- my girlfriend probably isn’t going to get along with Dan anyway, heh!”

“I think I could’ve told you that before you even met her,” Ben chuckles. “Does she have a name?”

“You- you’ll meet her soon enough,” Mac chuckles. “Just give it a couple of weeks first.”

“Meh, okay, fair enough,” Ben sighs.

“And like I was saying this morning,” Mac says with a smug-sounding chuckle, “if you want a girlfriend, just ask Ian to hook you up with one of his model friends!” Unsurprisingly, this makes both me and Ben roll our eyes.

“You know many supermodels who are into short Jewish nerds who still live with their parents, do you?” Ben asks with a snort.

“About as many who are into short, Welsh transgender nerds,” I reply with an even louder snort. While I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t had any interest from any girls over the summer (even from models who are also signed to HT), I’ve certainly had no time for a relationship, or even a little ‘fun’ over the summer. The fact that none of the girls I’ve met were as cute or as funny as Chloe certainly didn’t help my love life either…

After lunch, we head back to our coursework in the computer suite, before the day comes to an end just after 4pm. After bidding farewell to Ben and Mac, I gather up my notes, but instead of heading back home, I head to the nearest tube station. A short while later, I emerge back to the surface closer to the centre of the city, and I have a genuine smile on my face as I head into the Student Union's main bar.

“Hey Ian!” Kellie- this year’s chairperson of the university’s LGBT society- greets me with a wide grin. “Glad you could make it today!”

“Yeah, I was never going to miss this!” I chuckle. “The society helped me a lot last year, the least I can do is return the favour.” Not to mention it’s somewhere I can truly relax and just be an ordinary student- not a model, not a musician or a sportsperson. And even being transgender is unremarkable here.

“Are you sure I can’t talk you into being on the committee this year?” Kellie asks. “We could definitely use someone with your talents…” Someone with my contacts, you mean? I think to myself as I try not to frown. Thankfully, Kellie has always known in the past not to push the matter, so when I smile and shake my head she accepts my decision without any further argument.

“Got loads on my plate anyway,” I explain. “With work and everything…”

“It’s okay,” Kellie shrugs. “I’m just glad you’re here, heh!”

“Me too,” I say with a semi-awkward smile before heading to the bar, where I’m soon joined by another familiar face.

“Hi Ian!” My friend Ellie says with a grin as she sits down next to me with her drink. “Didn’t think I’d see you tonight?”

“Nah, I was never going to miss this!” I reply. “After, like, three months off, it’s just nice to be, like, a proper student again!”

“Ugh, I totally get what you mean,” Ellie says. “Though, like, I had literally no problems with looking after Janet over the summer, what with everything she’s done for me, and knowing that, well, it’ll be my turn soon!”

“Yeah,” I chuckle nervously. Like me, Ellie is transgender (albeit male-to-female) and after being estranged from her family for several months, was taken in by an older transgender woman- the aforementioned Janet. This summer, Janet (who works in the Heavenly Talent back office) had her SRS operation and is only just back on her feet, and while I’m happy for her that she had her operation, it’s still a reminder of how far away I am from my own ‘completion’. Though I should at least reach that goal before the age of 45, unlike Janet…

“Though to be fair, Lindsay did most of the, well, ‘heavy lifting’,” Ellie chuckles (Lindsay being Janet’s biological daughter). “You’ve met Lindsay before, haven’t you?”

“Umm, a couple of times,” I reply. “At, like, parties at your place.”

“She’s just started uni a couple of weeks ago,” Ellie explains. “Not at UAL, but at, like, the University of London, studying history.”

“Cool,” I say.

“So, like, she’s not going to be here tonight,” Ellie continues. “But, like, she wouldn’t be anyway even if she studied at UAL, ‘cause she’s, like, straight. Which is also why Oli’s not here either.”

“Oli’s your boyfriend, right?” I ask, smirking as a happy smile spreads across Ellie’s face.

“Yep!” The blonde girl replies. “We’ve been together just over three months now, heh. Lindsay, on the other hand, is single AND looking…” I pause before I take another swig of my beer to ponder what my friend’s obviously implying. I’ve only met Lindsay a few times, but she seems cool- friendly, funny and cute too. Not as cute as Chloe, mind you, but certainly very good looking. And if she’s friends with Ellie, and she’s the one setting her up with me, she’s presumably willing to look past the ‘main problem’ as well…

“I- I’ll think about it,” I mumble in reply.

“Well, don’t think for too long,” Ellie cautions. “Like I said, she’s just started uni, there’ll be plenty of other boys interested in her…”

“I- I’ll add her on Facebook tonight,” I say, hoping this will get my friend off my back. “I’m not really, you know, here to pick up girls, you know? Only straight guy in the room and all that?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Ellie shrugs. “It’s just that it’s been a while since, well…”

“Chloe gave me the ‘one-kneed elbow’?” I snort.

“…Since her worst ever decision,” Ellie says softly.

“Well- I guess,” I shrug, biting my lip as this triggers an awkward silence between the two of us.

“…So, umm, are- are you coming to the union event tomorrow?” Ellie asks.

“What union event?” I ask.

“The big student union meet-up,” Ellie replies. “Just a get-together for new freshers, that sort of thing. I’ll be going ‘cause I’m on the committee for the LGBT society, but everyone in the union’s invited.”

“Umm… Sure, I guess,” I shrug. “Not in uni tomorrow so I might as well.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for you there, then,” Ellie says with a grin. “In the meantime, if you’ll excuse me, I need to mingle, hehe! Have fun!”

“Will do!” I chuckle, before sighing as Ellie heads off to greet some of her other friends. Her bringing up Chloe’s name was a stress I don’t need right now, so after finishing my beer, I order another one, before heading over to a group of guys I met last year through the society. While they're not exactly close friends, we're still civil toward each other, and they're just the distraction I could use right now.

“Ooh look,” one of the guys, a tall, dark-haired man named Nate, says with what I know is a phony sneer. “It’s Captain Straight!”

“Come to rub your heterosexuality in our faces, straight boy?” Another one of the guys, a shorter, ginger-haired guy named Dale asks.

“You wish,” I reply, earning giggles from all five of the men as I sit down next to them with my beer.

“Oh, you know we’re only teasing!” Nate chuckles playfully. “Are you having a good time meeting everyone?”

“Umm, I’ve only just got here, actually,” I reply. “Just wanted to, you know, stop in and say hi to everyone, that sort of thing.” And pretend to just be a normal student, if just for one evening, I think to myself.

“Well then, hi!” Nate says with a dramatic wave that the other four guys copy. “We’ve been here a while, we’ve ‘mingled’, hopefully made a few new friends.”

“Including, hopefully, a boyfriend for Briony here!” Stevie, another one of the guys, teases his Scottish friend (whose name is actually ‘Brian’), who simply rolls his eyes in reply.

“I told you,” Brian sighs in his thick Glaswegian accent, “I’m okay wi’ being single for now!” You and me both, I try to convince myself.

“And we’ll believe that when hell freezes over,” Dale teases, giggling as Brian rolls his eyes. “Though it does look like we’re going to be well-represented in the society this year, there are a lot of fresh faces here, not just guys, but girls too.”

“Are you bi now?” Nate asks Dale (with whom he’s been in a relationship for about eight months) with a mock pout that’s only soothed when the two men exchange a gentle kiss.

“You know I’m not,” Dale snorts. “And besides, I’m on the committee this year, I have to be, you know, ‘approachable’.”

“Just don’t be TOO approachable,” Nate snorts. “How about you, Ian? Have you put your name down for the committee this year?”

“It was definitely a shame that there were no transgender guys OR girls on the committee last year,” Brian muses. “Or anyone not from England, heh!” I smirk as my fellow Celt gets teased by his friends.

“Ah- no, I haven’t,” I reply. “Got far too much on my plate, heh. Ellie has though, Ellie Blake, so we are, you know, ‘represented’.”

“That’s good, at least,” Dale says with a smile. “Even if it is yet another straight person on the committee, heh!”

“There’s nothing wrong with straight guys,” Nate says commandingly. “Provided they have vaginas, heh!”

“I’ll try to take that as a compliment, heh,” I chuckle.

“Though you’ll also be alright once you’ve had your final operation,” Nate reassures me. “A person is more than just a set of body parts, after all.”

“Umm… Medically speaking, isn’t that the exact definition of ‘person’?” Shane, the quietest of the group, asks.

“Well, ‘medically speaking’, yes,” Nate replies. “But none of us are medical students, are we?” I grin as I cheer along with the rest of the group, which attracts a bit of attention from nearby tables!

I spend the next ten minutes chatting with the guys, before our attention is called to the end of the room, where Kellie is stood along with a few other members of the committee.

“Hi everyone, thank you all for coming tonight!” Kellie enthuses. “It’s great to see so many new faces tonight, and yes, so many older faces too, hehe! On behalf of the committee, I’d like to welcome you all to the University of the Arts London’s LGBT society, and I hope that in the years to come, we all become great allies and great friends!” I cheer along with the rest of the bar as the music starts back up, and for the first time in a very long time, I can simply sit back and relax. No obligations, no deadlines, nowhere else I need to be. I can just kick back, relax, and hang out with friends. And try not to feel too stressed about how rare this feeling has become...

I arrive back at my flat just after 11pm, my head slowly spinning from both the fun of the evening and the seven pints of beer I’d downed at the bar. Unsurprisingly, Lee is still awake and working on his laptop when I return, barely looking up when I drop my stuff on the coffee table and flop down next to him.

“Evening,” Lee mumbles, not looking up from his complicated-looking coursework. “Good night, then?”

“GREAT night,” I chuckle. “Ahh… Just nice to have, you know, a night completely off, no coursework, no responsibilities, no nothing.” No Heavenly Talent, no lawsuit, no mum, no dad, no Chloe, no Laura, no Dan… No stress, I think to myself.

“Definitely sound like you needed it,” Lee says.

“Ugh, totally,” I sigh. “And the lie-in I’ll have tomorrow.”

“And the hangover?” Lee asks, visibly wincing at the smell of my breath.

“I’ll worry about that when I get to it,” I chuckle. Not a bad attitude to have about life in general, I think to myself. Especially my life…

“Well- I’ll leave you to it, then,” Lee says, saving his work and closing his laptop. “By ‘it’ I mean either relaxing or just generally being pissed.”

“Right, goodnight then!” I say with a chuckle as Lee heads to his bedroom.

I only stay up for another fifteen minutes myself, but they are fifteen of the most blissful minutes I’ve had in years, just listening to the sound of the minimal traffic passing by outside our flat and letting everything else simply wash over me.

Naturally, when I wake up the following morning, my mouth is bone dry and my head is pounding, but even this doesn’t bother me much as I know I can simply lay in bed for as long as I want… That is, until the pounding in my head is matched by the pounding coming from our front door. With a groan, I roll myself out of bed and wrap my dressing gown around my tired, shivering body.

“Yes, yes, alright!” I growl as the banging seems to get louder, both in my head and on the door. When I open the door, however, I’m greeted by four very unexpected faces, especially at this time of day.

“Morning!” Stuart says, smirking at my dishevelled state and the confusion on my face. “Not ready yet, then?”

“…Ready?” I ask, frowning as Stuart and the other three members of the band let themselves into the flat and flop down on my sofa.

“For band practice?” Mikey asks. “Wednesday is your day off from uni, isn’t it?” It WAS, I self-pityingly think to myself.

“Umm… Yeah, kinda,” I grumble.

“Well- okay then!” Mikey laughs. “Get yourself dressed, grab your bass and we’ll get going.” I try not to scream internally as I’m ordered about, just as I was for the first sixteen years of my life. I remind myself that my friends aren’t my mother- they actually care about me, for starters, and it’s very possible that I did just forget I had band practice today- I did have a lot to drink last night, after all. However, this doesn’t stop me from gazing at my stuffed giraffe toy as I get dressed, and wanting nothing more than to clamp my teeth down on its leg and scream until I’m hoarse…

After pulling on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, I’m ushered into Mikey’s van, and before long we’re at his house, setting up our instruments in his living room.

“Okay then,” the long-haired musician says. “We’re not rehearsing anything in particular, today’s really more of a jam session.” Then why am I even here? I think to myself as I tune my bass guitar. “If you have any requests, feel free to shout them out.” Before I can muster up the courage to ‘request’ to go home, my thoughts are interrupted by a yell from our drummer.

“Under the Bridge!” Jonathan yells, making the other three guys roll their eyes, clearly sharing in an in-joke I’m not privy to.

“Alright, fair enough, he who shouts first shouts loudest,” Stuart sighs, before placing an iPad on the stand in front of me. “This is the bass tab in case you can’t remember it- it’s pretty straightforward, let me know if you have any trouble with it.”

“Thanks,” I mumble, before taking a deep breath as Jonathan counts us in to the song made famous by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

We spend the next hour and a quarter running through various rock songs that were written before I was born, with Stuart supplying me with bass tabs each time. However, as the morning goes on, Stuart has an increasing look of concern on his face each time he changes my bass tab- and even though I know with absolute certainty he has my best interests in mind, I still feel myself growing more and more stressed.

Eventually, though, our jam session comes to an end when the front door opens and a tiny girl dressed in a pink tutu comes rushing through to greet her father, who gives her a long, gentle cuddle.

“Hey Maria!” Mikey coos, before giving the toddler a gentle kiss on her temple. “Did you have a good time at your dance class with mummy?”

“You could always just ask ‘mummy’ herself that,” Ms. Fullerton- or, as I’m now permitted to call her, Krystie says as she drops her dance bag in the living room and takes her daughter back from her husband, before giving the tall, bearded man a kiss. “I’m guessing you BOYS aren’t going to do any of the tidying up, either?”

“No, no, we’ll clean up after ourselves,” Jonathan says with a smirk.

"And you're doing most of it," Stuart teases the dark-skinned man. "Given how much tidying up we had to do after your party..." The party in question being Jonathan's 30th birthday party this Saturday just gone, yet another social function I was obliged to attend.

"Yeah, yeah, alright," Jonathan snorts, before letting out a cheeky laugh, no doubt at the memory of the party.

“Dunno how you’re going to tidy up all the sweat you just pumped into that brand-new kitchen chair!” Krystie retorts, gesturing to the dark patch behind our drummer.

“You work up a sweat when you’re drumming,” Jonathan shrugs.

“Yeah, well, your drumming for the day is over now that this little one’s home,” Krystie says, giving her daughter a gentle cuddle as we start to pack away our instruments. “And more to the point, you have a perfect good music studio at the HT head office, what’s wrong with using that? Boss won’t let you?” The other three guys all share a laugh at Jonathan’s expense, which I nervously join in- Jonathan is still technically my boss, after all.

“Same reason you don’t use your dance studio anymore to waste an hour goofing off every Wednesday,” Jonathan retorts, leading to an awkward pause that’s broken by my five older friends all laughing simultaneously.

“Touché,” Krystie giggles. “Though I might be starting those up again in 2020, now that the other school has opened, heh.” I keep the smile on my face as I gradually tune out the ‘grown-ups’ conversation and focus on packing away my guitar, but I’m soon interrupted by my mentor giving me a nudge.

“Hey,” Stuart says quietly as the other conversation continues. “You alright?”

“Hmm?” I reply. “Umm, yeah, fine, why d’you ask?”

“You were kinda… Not with it this morning,” Stuart says. “Yeah, I know we joke about ‘no one notices the bassist’ but you were dropping a lot of notes.”

“Meh, I- I’m just, you know, hungover, that’s all…” I mumble as my stress levels rise yet again, even though I logically know they shouldn’t- this is Stuart, after all. He, of all people, won’t deliberately put me in positions where he knows I’m uncomfortable.

“Well- if you say so,” Stuart shrugs. “I just know that I’ve played guitar completely hammered before and I- heh. I AM a musician, I did study music at university and you’re not, which is fair enough, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly.

“If…” Stuart says, before taking a deep breath. “If you want to, you know, take a break from the band, then that’s okay. I can take over on bass for a while until you’re feeling better, or until Dan isn’t up to his elbows in nappies, heh.” I bite my lip as I look at my friend’s face, my stomach churning as I consider his question. Even though he’s not saying it the same way, and even though I know he definitely doesn’t mean it the same way, as Stuart talks all I hear is my mother sneering at me every time I didn’t measure up to her high standards.

“Well I suppose you could always just quit ballet,” my mother would sneer. “And waste all the money me and your father has spent on these lessons.”

“You could always just give up on acting,” mum would spit. “And spend your life working at McDonald’s or something.”

“You could always just quit being a cheerleader,” mum would sneer. “And go and hang out with the nerds, get bullied every day for the rest of your life and never amount to anything.”

And every time mum emotionally blackmailed me, I caved in. I did was I was supposed to, and was a good, dutiful daughter. And even though my name is NOT Kayleigh-Ann and I am NOT a girl, the thought of disappointing Stuart- and he would be disappointed, no matter what he says- makes me feel just as small as I did every time I disappointed my mother.

“I- I’ll be fine,” I say, my stomach churning even more at my lie.

“Are you sure?” Stuart asks quietly.

“Positive,” I reply with a nod of my head and the same forced smile I wore almost every day for the first sixteen years of my life.

“Well- okay,” Stuart says. “I’ll give you a bit more warning before the next band session, heh. You doing anything tonight?”

“Umm, got a student union event in the evening, that’s about it,” I reply.

“Ah, okay,” Stuart chuckles. “Which I know from experience is code for ‘I’ll be hungover again tomorrow’!”

“Probably,” I chuckle.

“Well- have fun tonight!” Stuart says with a friendly smile. “Are you okay for a lift home?”

“I can get the tube,” I shrug.

“Nah, Jamie’s picking me up in a bit, let us give you a lift home, okay?” Stuart says, and yet again, I find myself unable to say ‘no’.

“Okay,” I mumble, zipping up my guitar bag and heading out to the driveway, where we’re not waiting long for our ride home to arrive.

“Okay, am I being a taxi today, then?” Jamie asks with a sigh that, even though I know she’s teasing, still makes me wince.

“If- if you don’t mind,” I mumble.

“Of course I don’t mind!” Jamie giggles, flashing me her world-famous smile as I drop mine and Stuart’s guitars in the boot of the car, while he playfully greets his daughter, who is dressed identically to Mikey's daughter and just as excited. “Did you boys have fun this morning, then?”

“Yep!” Stuart replies with a grin. “Can’t speak for Ian though, I think he’s got a bit of the ‘student flu’.”

“…I hope it’s not contagious?” Jamie says worriedly.

“I’m pretty sure it’s transmitted by fluids only,” Stuart says, miming a ‘drinking motion’.

“…Ah,” Jamie says with a giggle. “Not just students who suffer from that ‘flu’, hehe!”

“Though ‘bouts’ have been few and far between since, well, other responsibilities!” Stuart says with a grin as he gazes back at his napping daughter. “Even during Mad Week, heh.”

“Mad Week?” I ask.

“I’ve told you about Mad Week before, haven’t I?” Stuart replies. “Jon’s birthday, this weekend just gone, then Mary’s birthday on Friday and Hannah’s on Monday.”

“Cool,” I say, trying my hardest to sound enthusiastic, as my stress is joined by a sensation of guilt. There are millions of people my age- not just girls, but guys too- who would give anything to have my lifestyle. I’m nineteen years old and already I have a fledgling modelling career, I’m in a band, I’ve been on TV (okay, it was Robot Wars, but still), I am a girl magnet even discounting any of the aforementioned things and I’m close friends with some of Britain’s biggest celebrities. Even my ‘status’ rarely causes me any problems when I’m out in public- no one looks twice at a girl wearing a pair of jeans, and the fine stubble I keep on my face at all times means it’s extremely rare that anyone even perceives me as a girl- which, of course, I am not. I should be able to just sit back, let the fame, money and girls roll in, and transition on my own schedule, happy in the knowledge I have the best support network there is. And yet I can’t. And I hate that I can't. I really, really do.

Jamie drops me back at my flat a short while later, and I let out a long groan as I drop my guitar in the entrance way and collapse heavily onto the sofa, finally beginning the relaxation I was looking forward to so badly today. However, no matter how hard I try, I can't put all of my responsibilities, all of my stress to one side. If I try to forget about the band, it makes me focus on my HT work. If I try to forget about that, it makes me focus on my uni work. And if I try to forget about THAT, I’m right back to the band again. And at the back of my mind, at all times, is the disapproving sneer of my mother.

I try to distract myself over the course of the afternoon with TV and videogames, but it only provides a brief respite from my problems. Fortunately, I at least have the Student Union event this evening to look forward to, and after Lee returns home and we have a quick Deliveroo dinner I head into my bedroom to change for the night ahead. It might be hypocritical of me to say this, but one of the definite benefits of working for Heavenly Talent is that my wardrobe has vastly expanded, and with a lot of designer labels too. Of course, having a wardrobe full of designer clothing is nothing new to me- growing up, I had a wardrobe full of fashionable skirts, dresses and skimpy tops… The very thought makes me shudder. And even though many of the clothes in my wardrobe have the same labels as those older clothes, there’s no question that they were intended to be worn by men. In my smart shirt, black trousers and lace-up shoes, there is no question- my name IS Ian and I AM a man. No matter what stress I might feel right now, no one can take that away from me- especially not mum, Craig or my gone and very much not missed grandmother. That’s not to say that everyone I currently have in my life is a positive influence, though, as proven when I head out of my bedroom to discover we have a guest in the flat.

“Hi Joey Essex,” Dan says, making me roll my eyes at the continued use of his favourite unoriginal insult.

“Hi Sheldon,” I retort, not that my intended insult gets any reaction from its target. “Dunno when I’ll be home so don’t lock the door, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the rules,” Lee says. “You have fun and try not to get too pissed again, okay?”

“No promises,” I chuckle as I head out of the front door and make my way toward the nearest tube station.

Of course, consciously I know that Dan is just being a dick and that I should let his insult wash over me- after all, it’s not like he’s calling me ‘Joanne Essex’. Inside, though, it stings just as badly as any other insult- especially as it’s a reminder of how little control I have over my life. All of a sudden, my expensive clothes feel a lot less comfortable…

I arrive at the Student Union building a short time later and make my way straight to the bar to grab myself a drink, before gazing out at the crowd of people already here. Even though it’s hard work, it’s no exaggeration to say that I genuinely love studying at university. At home, I was always mum’s pet project, a child lost in a family filled with belligerent adults. At school, I was the cheerleader, desperately trying to maintain my popularity, desperately trying to pretend to be the girl I truly wasn't on the inside. Drama and dance classes were even worse- I was literally made to pretend to be someone I wasn’t. Which applies to everywhere I went in the first sixteen years of my life- everywhere I went, I was a boy forced to pretend that he was a girl. And even worse, that’s all that everybody saw.

When I went to college in Wales, though, all of that changed. For the first time ever, I went somewhere that I wanted to be. I was presenting myself as the person I wanted to be. And sure, I had to ‘bandage myself down’, especially when out in public, but even the bandage never felt like it was a mask. However, even that was nothing compared to my first year of university, and not just because I no longer needed the bandage. I presented myself as a man, and for the most part, that’s how I was accepted. ‘Accepted’- what a word. It’s hard to put into words what it means just to be accepted for who you really are, even when you spent the first 16 years not being accepted. Sure, there were some idiots, same as there are everywhere, but they were very much in the minority, and in the LGBT society, I had a great support mechanism.

But not as great as the support I had from my friends- and not just those at university with me. ‘Kayleigh-Ann’ never had any real friends, just hangers-on, cliques who banded together out of a misguided sense that loyalty means popularity. The friends I’ve made as Ian, though, have been with me through thick and thin- my troubles with my parents, my break-ups with Ella and Chloe, the lawsuit- everything. Which is why I grin widely when my phone buzzes to inform me of an incoming text message.

‘Am here, where r u?’ The message from Ben reads.

‘By the bar,’ I reply, and within seconds my dark-haired friend appears and greets me with (what Dan insists is called and now I can't get it out of my head) a G Lock handshake.

“Alright mate?” I say out loud. “I’ve only just got here myself, have you seen Mac yet?”

“Umm, nope,” Ben replies with a shrug. “Sent him a text too but only, like, at the same time I sent you one so he’s not got back to me yet.”

“We’ll give him a few minutes,” I say, smiling as I gaze out at the crowd and how I feel like I truly belong here. Of course, the fact that there are several attractive (and single) young women in the crowd is one of the main reasons for my smile- especially the ones who are obviously checking out my short but still very ripped body! “Come on, let’s see if we can find him.” Ben smirks as we head into the crowd in search of our tall, blond-haired friend, who, thanks to being tall and blond haired, isn’t hard to spot. I share a knowing grin with Ben as I see that our friend has his arm around a girl’s waist- undoubtedly the girlfriend he’s been telling us about.

My smile falls, though, when Mac turns around to greet us… And I see that the girl whose waist he has his arm around is none other than Chloe Barnard. THE Chloe Barnard. MY Chloe Barnard- or at least, she used to be.

“Oh- Ian, umm, hi!” Mac says, clearly startled by my sudden appearance. “I didn’t- umm, I thought you’d be coming a bit later?”

“Hi,” I say, trying my hardest to remain stoic even as my emotions. “Hi Chloe.”

“Hi Ian,” Chloe says in an almost defiant voice that makes my blood pressure rise.

“Long time no see,” I say, unconsciously clenching my left hand into a fist.

“Yeah,” Mac says, releasing my ex-girlfriend's hand and gingerly walking toward me. “Come on, mate, let me- let me buy you a drink.”

“I’ve got a drink,” I say, gesturing to the beer in my hand.

“I’ll buy you some crisps, then,” Mac says, grabbing my arm only to flinch when I yank it away from him. “Look, mate, really, I- I didn’t want you to find out like this, but-“

“Stop- you can stop calling me ‘mate’,” I interrupt, bringing a frown to the faces of my former friend and my former girlfriend.

“Mature as always,” Chloe sneers, causing my fist to tighten to the point where my knuckles start to turn white. Of all the people he could’ve gone out with, of all the thousands of girls in London, of course, of COURSE he’d pick the one girl he knows- he KNOWS I’m still hung up on. Even if she’s clearly not hung up on me anymore…

“You yourself said ‘long time no see’,” Mac says, stepping back from me and assuming what two years of boxing training tells me is a defensive posture. “You’d been split up six months, mate, I gave you plenty of time to work it out, you didn’t, so- yeah. Me and Chloe like each other, and if you have a problem with it, you can just get over it.”

“Nice, really nice,” I spit. “From the guy who keeps going on about the so-called ‘bro code’?”

“Which says ‘wait before moving in on a mate’s ex’,” Mac says. “What, was I supposed to ask you for permission?”

“Well- no, obviously,” I growl, trying not to panic as our argument starts to draw a crowd. “But how many times have we hung out together and you never even thought to tell me you were thinking about this?”

“Because I knew you’d react like this!” Mac snaps.

“So you thought you’d just spring it on me like this?” I retort. “By rubbing my face in it?”

“No one’s rubbing- ugh,” Mac says, before sighing and shaking his head. “Is it too much to ask for you to, you know, be happy for the both of us?”

“Maybe give it six months, then we’ll see,” I sneer.

“Right, fine then, be like that,” Mac sighs, before turning away from me, only to turn back for one last word. “In the meantime, I’ll just be over here, giving Chloe something you never could.” As Mac speaks, I feel every drop of blood in my body instantly boil as I slam my beer down on a nearby table. I’ve known him a whole year, and in all that time, I honestly, genuinely thought we were friends. Now I know how mistaken I was. Just like everybody else in my life- literally everybody else- he was just using me as a means to an end, in this case, to steal my girlfriend. And what he just said… he must know how much that rubs salt in the wound. And I am not about to take it lying down.

“Want to repeat that?” I ask, my face mere inches away from Mac’s.

“I- Ian, I-“ The blond man stammers.

“WANT TO FUCKING WELL REPEAT THAT?” I yell, shoving my former friend hard in the chest, causing him to stagger back a few feet and nearly knock Chloe over too. With a look of anger in his face, Mac practically charges at me and shoves me in the chest, sending me stumbling back as well, before a feeling of pure rage overwhelms me.

How dare he shove me? I think to myself. After what he did, after what he said… And to shove me in the chest, too. Both of his palms were placed squarely over my nipples, which he must know- especially after what he said- is still a sensitive area for me. As I get my footing back and I see Mac walking toward me, time seems to slow down as I go into full automatic pilot. Before I even know what’s happening, I’ve landed two right-handed punches into his abdomen, and as he doubles over, my left fist connects with the side of his face, sending him crashing to the floor and nearly taking a couple of tables with him. Before I can do anything else, I feel two pairs of arms restrain me from behind and an angry face appear in front of me- but it’s not the face I was expecting.

“Ian, stop!” Kellie shouts, before shoving me back herself as I break free of the two people holding me and again advance toward my former friend. “Ian, I- I think you should probably leave now.”

“Wh- did- did you hear what he said?” I ask as I struggle to regain control of my actions.

“Yeah, I did,” Kellie replies. “And he’ll be leaving too. But you’re not just going to belt someone in the face and then carry on like nothing happened! So go home, Ian. Calm yourself down. If you need to talk tomorrow, I- I’ll free up some time.”

“…Thanks,” I mumble, my cheeks reddening with a feeling of pure shame as I realise that the entire bar has stopped to watch both the fight and my dressing-down from my friend. And, naturally, every pair of eyes follows me as I walk out of the bar, the cold autumn air making me shiver as I head to the nearest tube station.

How I maintained my composure on the train ride home I don’t know, but by the time I’m walking through our front door, the tears are streaming down my face, and after ensuring that I’m alone in the flat (Lee had texted me earlier to say he was meeting up with his new girlfriend), I head through to my bedroom, grab my stuffed giraffe off the shelf and clamp its leg between my teeth, before curling up into a ball on my bed and screaming and screaming…

I don’t know much time passes, but the next thing I’m aware of is being woken up by a loud banging coming from the front door. It takes me a while to realise that in my distress, I must have fallen asleep (or passed out) on my bed, but my saliva and teeth mark-covered toy giraffe at my side is an immediate reminder of the evening’s events.

“Go away,” I yell, disgusted by the feeble sound of my voice. However, the banging soon resumes, even louder than before. “Just fuck off, okay?” Needless to say, this doesn’t deter the banging either, and with a loud moan, I roll off my bed and head toward the front door, wondering briefly whether or not I’d ordered a Deliveroo. When I open the front door, though, it’s not a pizza or a curry that greets me, but rather the face of the last person I expected to see this evening.

“Hi, Ian,” Chloe says in a soft, almost nervous voice. Even though there isn’t a trace of anger in her voice or on her face, I still feel my blood start to boil, and without saying a word I start to slam the door in Chloe’s face, only for her to stick a hand out to stop it.

“W- wait, Ian, please?” Chloe asks timidly.

“Shouldn’t you be checking up on your boyfriend?” I sneer.

“He’ll live,” Chloe says with a dismissive shrug. “Though after what he said, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. Please- please can I come in?” Despite everything in my head screaming at me to slam the door in Chloe’s face and forget that she ever existed, I relent and allow her into our flat, directing her to sit in Lee’s chair while I spread out on the sofa.

“Why are you HERE, anyway?” I ask. “As opposed to, like, literally anywhere else?”

“I- I wanted to see how you were,” Chloe says, before letting out a long, sad sigh. “I really didn’t like how things ended between us.”

“I can’t say I have any fond memories of it,” I snort as I cross my legs at the memory of the ‘impact’ with which Chloe dumped me.

“…Yeah,” Chloe mumbles. “Ian, I- I am SO sorry about that, I- ugh. I was angry, and I dunno what I was thinking, I thought that maybe, you know, all the testosterone made you less sensitive down there- I dunno.”

“Yep,” I say.

“And for what it’s worth…” Chloe says, before grimacing, then much to my anger and surprise, giggling. “Ugh. Okay than, a- a couple of months ago I went on a hen night for one of my cousins, me and Hannah did, and part of it was that we all had pole dancing lessons, which was really fun, you know? Getting dressed up in bikinis, wearing ridiculously high platform shoes…”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I say, even though my heart is involuntarily beating faster at the thought of Chloe wearing just a bikini and a pair of platform shoes.

“So, anyway, I was doing REALLY well at it,” Chloe continues. “So the teacher showed me a slightly more complicated move. I have a go at it, but I’d had a few glasses of champagne at that point, so my balance wasn’t great, so I slipped, and went into the pole at full speed, lady parts first.”

“…Ouch,” I say with a grimace that makes Chloe giggle again.

“So, anyway, Hannah of course thinks it’s the funniest thing that ever happened,” the ginger girl continues. “And as I’m crawling, literally crawling back to my seat, all I can think of is- is you, Ian.”

“Right,” I say uncertainly. “So you associate me with excruciating pain?”

“Or I associate you with my lady parts,” Chloe shrugs. “And not just ‘cause, you know, we have a ‘matching set’, but because- well, yeah.”

“Yeah,” I mumble, which triggers an awkward silence between the two of us.

“…So, I- I gather you’re signed to Heavenly Talent now?” Chloe asks, making me roll my eyes internally- of course, she’d ask THAT question…

“Yep,” I reply bluntly, leading to another awkward silence. “In between my studies, like.”

“That must be SO cool,” Chloe chuckles. “As you know, I’ve just started at the London College of Fashion, and literally everyone on my course would kill to have an HT model showing off our stuff!”

“Cool,” I say, even if I think it's anything BUT cool. “What are you studying again?”

“Costume for Performance,” Chloe replies with a smug smirk. “I actually got some handy work experience over summer, helping to make costumes for a local theatre who were doing a performance of Grease. So I was, like, modifying leather jackets, old-fashioned poodle skirts, that sort of thing.”

“Yeah,” I say as I barely suppress a shudder.

“What’s up?” Chloe asks. “Don’t tell me you don’t like Grease?”

“I wouldn’t say I was its biggest fan,” I snort. “I was- I was kinda in a performance of it, when I was in Year 10.”

“Oh, cool!” Chloe squeaks, apparently not caring about the deepening frown on my face. “What role did you play?”

“…Frenchy,” I reply, which immediately causes Chloe’s face to fall.

“…Oh,” the ginger girl whispers.

“So as you might imagine, not many fond memories of THAT,” I snort.

“Ugh, Ian, I am SO sorry,” Chloe groans. “I just- I mean, we were literally discussing your, well, ‘parts’ a few seconds ago, but I- I just can’t visualise you as ever having been a girl.”

“That-“ I say, before chuckling. “That’s actually, like, one of the things, like, positive things I took from when we, well, broke up- that you never once threw me being- well, me back in my face, if that makes any sense?”

“It makes perfect sense, and I would never, EVER do that,” Chloe reassures me. “No matter how angry I got with you. I am NOT my sister.”

“Or your boyfriend?” I ask, making Chloe snort and angrily shake her head.

“I can’t believe he said that to you!” Chloe says exasperatedly. “He’s supposed to be your friend, after all, and- well…”

“Well…?” I ask.

“I never- I never really had any problems with, well, your ‘performance’,” Chloe says, making me smirk as she starts to blush.

“Well, umm, thanks!” I chuckle.

“You’re VERY welcome!” Chloe giggles. “And to answer your next question, no, I can’t compare you with Mac yet as we’ve not actually, well, had sex yet. Not sure we will either, not after what he said to you tonight.”

“Umm, okay,” I say as my body starts to tingle with excitement despite my best efforts.

“I mean, I accept now that I TOTALLY overreacted,” Chloe says. “You were under so much stress, what with your dad and everything. What happened with that, anyway?”

“Heavenly Talent have a top London lawyer on retainer,” I reply with a smug grin of my own. “She basically just buried my da- buried Craig and his lawyer, made it impossible for them to continue with the suit.”

“Nice,” Chloe says with the smile that made me fall in love with her all that time ago. “Despite everything that happened between us, I still love seeing transphobes get put in their place, heh!”

“Me too,” I say.

“I mean, so what if you don’t have the right ‘parts’?” Chloe shrugs. “It just means you know your way around a woman’s body better than any BOY ever could, right?”

“I guess,” I reply. “And around the bodies of girls who weren’t always girls, too.” I immediately kick myself as the words escape my mouth- why I feel this urge to make Chloe jealous is beyond me, I mean, as well as we're getting on right now, we're not going to get back together, and yet my first instinct is to rub it in her face that I've not always been alone since we broke up.

“…Oh,” Chloe mumbles, her back stiffening at the news. “You’ve- you’ve been seeing someone else since we split up?” I open my mouth to reply, only to pause as I consider what I should say. ‘A few people’? That’d be a lie. ‘One or two’? Technically true, but Chloe would then ask ‘one or two?’, and I’d be forced to reply with ‘one’, and it was only a one-time thing, which I can’t simply say as I don’t want Chloe to think that I’m still hung up on her- however true that might be…

“…Yeah,” I eventually reply with a nonchalant shrug. “Her name's Laura, I think you’ve met her before?”

“What, Laura- Laura White?” Chloe asks. “The really tall blonde girl?”

“Mm,” I reply with another shrug. “We hooked up and- well, yeah.” I have to bite my lip to prevent myself from grinning at the uncomfortable look that immediately spreads across my ex’s face.

“Oh, okay,” Chloe mumbles. “Are you- are you still together?”

“…No,” I mumble in reply after briefly considering whether or not to lie to spare myself any embarrassment. Much to my surprise, though, Chloe seems to almost breathe a sigh of relief at this.

“Okay,” Chloe shrugs. “Are you- are you seeing anyone right now?”

“Well- no, not really,” I say, again deciding that telling the truth is probably easier in the long run. “Probably wouldn’t have reacted to you and Mac the way I did if I was, heh.”

“Yeah,” Chloe says with a quiet chuckle. “None of, like, the models from Heavenly Talent, like, you know?”

“Pretty much all of them already have a boyfriend anyway,” I reply. “So do most of the girls at uni, it seems to be a rule, like, if a girl is above a certain level of prettiness, she’s guaranteed to have a boyfriend, even if she isn’t a transphobe.”

“That can’t make it easy,” Chloe muses.

“Not really, no,” I snort. “I mean, there ARE safe spaces, like the LGBT society, but that’s not an ideal place for a straight guy to pick up girls, heh. And the uni is generally harsh on transphobia, but that doesn’t mean they can guarantee that it’ll never happen.”

“Like we saw tonight,” Chloe sighs. “I am SO sorry you had to put up with that from Mac, I- I can’t believe he of all people would say that to you.”

“And I suppose I’m sorry I ruined your boyfriend’s face,” I chuckle.

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure whether or not he’ll still be my boyfriend tomorrow,” Chloe shrugs. “I mean, this is, like, the first time in ages that we’ve talked, and it’s, like, reminding me of why we were so good together in the first place, so, you know… we could always, you know, pick up where we left off?” My heart skips a beat as Chloe makes the offer that I’ve waited over six months to hear, and while my first instinct is to jump at the opportunity, there are several niggling voices in the back of my head offering words of caution.

After all, Chloe did dump me without a second thought and refuse to speak to me for months, and it’s very convenient that she’s now interested in me again after I confirm that I've signed for Heavenly Talent. And moreover… I simply can’t do to Mac what he did to me, no matter how justified my anger toward him might be for what he said tonight. Mac’s so-called ‘bro code’ might well be a complete pile of horseshit, but I take my ‘Ian code’ very seriously, and I won’t do anything to hurt a friend, even if that person is very likely not a friend anymore. And I most definitely won’t do anything that will cause even more stress for me- as another relationship with Chloe inevitably would, regardless of how cute she is…

“I- I think we should, you know, just stay as friends for now,” I mumble, trying not to blush with embarrassment at the disappointment in Chloe’s eyes. I brace myself for the inevitable- ‘are you only interested in girls with dicks now’ and so forth, but instead, much to my surprise, Chloe simply sighs and nods.

“Fair enough,” Chloe says. “I suppose I can always, like, talk to Mac, hear his side of things, sort of thing…” I try not to fidget as my suspicions are confirmed- even if Mac is obviously Chloe's second choice behind me. “But, you know, friends works for now, heh.”

“Yeah,” I mumble. “Do you- will you be alright getting home? Neither me or Mac have a car…”

“Yeah, neither do either of my flat mates,” Chloe sighs. “And I’m still not comfortable going on the tube alone, and not just ‘cause my mum would have a heart attack if she learned I did!”

“Taxi, then?” I ask.

“Kinda strapped for cash,” Chloe grimaces. “Can I- can I crash here tonight? I mean, it- it doesn’t have to be in the same bed as you, if Lee’s not coming back tonight, I can take his, or the sofa?”

“Dunno about Lee,” I reply as I ponder my answer- girlfriend or not, I’m not going to kick her out on the streets, especially not when it’s dark and getting colder… “I can- I can always find some sheets, make up the sofa for you, if that’s what you want?”

“That’d be perfect,” Chloe says with a grin as I head to the airing cupboard to get the bedding. “Hey, is the PlayStation VR helmet yours or Lee’s?”

“Umm, Lee’s, but I can use it whenever I want,” I reply. “I’m sure you played it when we were going out, didn’t you?”

“Nope, never played on one before, here or anywhere else,” Chloe replies. “Dad wouldn’t buy us one, reckons we wouldn’t use it enough to justify the cost, but I kinda noticed you’ve got Star Trek Bridge Crew, and I- I’ve always wanted to give that a go, heh.” Despite myself, a grin spreads across my face as Chloe makes this request- it’s certainly a far cry from Laura's attitude when she played on the VR.

“I’m sure Lee won’t mind me setting it up,” I say with a grin as I get the headset out of its box and charge up the motion controllers.

Chloe and I stay up until just before midnight, simply talking and playing videogames like we did countless times in the past- the only difference being that this time, we're not in a relationship. Nonetheless, I have more fun throughout the evening than I’ve had in a very long time, and especially after the fight with Mac, it’s just what I needed- an opportunity to relax and have fun, and forget all about the inevitable confrontation with Mac tomorrow…

The following morning, I’m woken up by the feeling of a hand roughly shoving my body, though when I open my eyes, it’s not my ex-girlfriend staring back at me.

“Good morning, finally,” Lee says quietly. “Why is your ex-girlfriend sleeping on our sofa?”

“…Cause if she was my current girlfriend, she’d be in here with me,” I reply, before rolling over and trying to get back to sleep, only for Lee to unceremoniously whip the pillow out from under my head.

“You know what I mean, smart arse,” Lee says. “Why is she in the flat at all?”

“Ugh, SUPER long story,” I sigh, before groaning and throwing off my sheets as I realise my best friend isn’t going to leave me alone until I’ve told him the story. “You’d better put the kettle on…”

After filling Lee in on last night’s events (and filling my stomach with corn flakes and coffee), I gently wake Chloe up, trying to keep my feelings under control as her eyes flutter open and she immediately smiles when she sees me.

“Morning,” the ginger girl says dreamily.

“Morning,” Lee replies, which unsurprisingly startles my ex-girlfriend.

“Oh, umm, hi Lee!” The now fully awake Chloe says, clearly surprised by my flat mate standing over her. “I, umm, I hope you don’t mind me staying over last night…”

“Bit late to worry about it now even if I did,” my friend says. “But no, I don’t mind, and Ian’s explained the situation, so- yeah. And thanks for making my VR headset all perfumey again.”

“You’re wel- wait, again?” Chloe asks.

“…Laura may have played with it a bit,” I explain, biting my lip and frowning as Chloe’s face falls slightly.

“Oh,” Chloe mumbles. “Well, okay, I guess.”

“I’ve saved some coffee for you, so help yourself,” Lee says as he relaxes back in his chair while Chloe scooches up to make room for me on the sofa. “D’you need a lift to uni?”

“Please,” Chloe replies. “Heh, kinda like the old days, you know? The three of us, off to college together…”

“Well, we all go to three different universities, but I guess,” Lee says, flashing me a sympathetic smile. The decision to stay apart from Chloe isn’t an easy one, but it’s one that I needed to make for the sake of my sanity.

…Not least because when I head into university a short while later, Ben is waiting for me, but Mac is conspicuous by his absence.

“Morning,” my dark-haired friend says with a half-grimace, half-smile. “You okay after last night?”

“Ugh… Yes and no,” I reply with a sigh. “Have you seen Mac yet?”

“Yep,” Ben replies, the smile fading from his face. “He’s talking to Steve, he- Steve, that is- said he wanted to see you too.” Steve being our lead professor on our course, who no doubt wasn't happy to hear what happened last year.

“No prizes for guessing why,” I sigh. “Did- was there, you know, much of a, like, problem after I left?”

“Umm, not really,” Ben replies. “Mac and Chloe left just after you did, but they had a mega argument on the way out too, so- yeah. Kellie was pretty unhappy with you too.”

“Ehh, I’ll have to talk to her later as well,” I sigh. And it turns out that I was Chloe’s second choice, or rebound or whatever, after all…

“Meh, it’ll blow over soon enough,” Ben shrugs. “You’re hardly the first two drunk straight guys to have a fight in a bar over a girl, after all.”

“Well- true, I suppose,” I chuckle as we arrive outside our professor’s office. “Wish me luck…” Ben gives me a gentle pat on my shoulder as I knock on the office door and am invited in. When I enter the office, Mac is unsurprisingly waiting for me, sporting a nasty bruise on the side of his face.

“Have a seat, Ian,” Steve says, gesturing to the chair next to Mac. Understandably, I hesitate, before sighing and lowering myself into the seat next to the tall blond man. I try not to flinch as our professor lets out a long, tired sigh at the sight of the obvious hostility between the two of us. “Needless to say, I heard about what happened last night and the circumstances surrounding it, and while I am very disappointed in both of you, there is a part of me that isn’t surprised that it escalated the way it did. Mac, what you said last night- and don’t deny it, because it was caught on camera-“ Great, I'm going to be on the internet, I think to myself. “Whether you think it is or not, it WAS transphobic hate speech. Obviously, that does not excuse either of you making it physical in any way, shape or form. I’m not going to issue any sanctions this time, on the understanding that this- both the hate speech and the fight- never happens again. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Mac and I mumble at the same time.

“Good,” Steve says. “It’ll probably be best if you two also don’t sit next to each other for the next few weeks, Ian, would you mind sitting over near Sarah and Kyle?”

“Nope, that works for me,” I reply, even if I do feel singled out at being the one to move, as it means that Mac will still be sat with Ben and could end up costing me yet another friend.

“Good,” Steve says. “We’d better get going, don’t want to be late for the first seminar. But first, you two shake hands.” I bite my lip to keep from frowning as Mac and I stand up and face each other. Mac is the first to extend his hand, which I reluctantly shake as I ponder whether or not to tell him about last night. After all, he never told me about him and Chloe, and given that she went straight from our flat to university, he probably doesn’t know that his relationship’s probably already over. Then again, him keeping his relationship with Chloe from me is a large part of why we had problems in the first place…

“You- you should call Chloe,” I say to the taller man. “She stayed overnight at our flat, on the sofa.”

“Ian, that’s not helping,” Steve chastises me.

“Better he hears it now than finds out out of the blue,” I retort, the angry look in Mac’s eye letting me know that I struck the intended nerve.

“…Fine,” Mac says, before leaving the office without another word.

“Was that true?” Steve asks as we leave a sizeable gap behind Mac before following. “What you said about your girlfriend?”

“Yes, and it’s ex-girlfriend,” I reply, feeling slightly offended at the insinuation. “I- I thought that, you know, if I told him it’d clear the air… Ugh, I dunno.”

“Yeah, well, best if the two of you give each other a wide berth for the next few weeks,” Steve advises.

“Yep,” I say as I enter the seminar room and set up my laptop far away from Mac and Ben.

The main reason I told Mac was, in fact, in the vain hope that I might actually retain a good friend- something that feels like it’s in short supply right now. Mac, however, clearly had no such worries when he rubbed his new relationship with my ex in my face. But even with that in mind, I’d rather have him as a friend instead of an enemy- not least because university is one of the very few places I had left where I felt truly comfortable, and now even that feels like it's being taken away from me…