Feminine (Elle Argent's full story)

Chapter 2: Tao Xu

It wasn't long into my school life until I realised how much I hated school. I was only in Primary but I hated every second of it and I felt so left out because I only had 1 real friend. His name was Tao Xu,he was one of the only people in the world that I could trust because I felt that everyone else was just going to betray me; yes I had trust issues since I was 8. But Tao was so nice to me, he also helped me realise I was trans. We were friends since the start of year 4 because I was randomly sitting alone on a bench as per usual and he came over and just tapped me on the shoulder and said "TAG". I never started a game of tag with him but I chased after him anyway and then we instantly clicked. We always talked and sat next to each other at lunch  about stuff even though we were all alone, we would just continue to play with each other and chat all day long. I wish my confidence levels had stayed that high, there have been times in my life when I needed an attitude towards life like we did. Every other week on Fridays I would go back to his house and stay until my mom came to pick me up. Tao was the only person who actually liked me. I feel like for most of my other 'friends' I was just a backup in case they ever needed a partner if their other friends were already taken. But Tao was my ultimate best friend and I wouldn't be the same person if we were never friends. Our friendship had a bit of a hiccup when I transitioned to high school (6th grade if you're American) I had always been a year above Tao in school which meant that I was going to head off to high school first. There were 2 local schools in our area, Truham Grammar School for Boys which was a school almost right next to ours and Harvey Greene Grammar School for Girls which was across the road from Truham and was nicknamed Higgs as it's easier to say. I didn't want to go to a new school on my own, even though it was right next to our primary and Tao and I had agreed to meet outside the gate every day and walk home together, without Tao I had no idea how I was going to survive, friendless and alone for an entire school day. I was also facing the fact that Truham is an all boys school and I still felt like a girl inside of me. Bear in mind at this point I was still clueless on what transgender was and why I had these feelings. I genuinely just felt like I'd grow out of it one day but obviously I never did. My form room was room C12 and my group was Hamlet 4. Our seating plan was organised by our teacher and I needed up sitting next to someone called Nicholas Nelson. We didn't speak, he seemed like an annoying rugby lad but he also smiled at me when I sat down next to him. I spent the whole form thinking about the fact of that if I was a girl I wouldn't have to be here right now and how much I missed Tao and his jokes and just his overall company. I didn't make any new friends that day and I was super emotional so I spent the entire day trying not to embarrass myself in front of everyone and burst into floods of tears. When the last bell rang, I waited 10 minutes outside the primary school gate because the primary finishes at 3:10 whereas the high school finishes at 3:00. I saw Tao's teacher Miss Reiner lead a line of about 30 kids and I scanned through them all till I saw Tao, our eyes met and he waved at me and came running towards me as soon as he was let out the gate. Our house were a couple of roads away from each other and mine was first so Tao and I walked home and chatted the whole way. He talked about his new class, how boring Miss Reiner was, his new dinosaur rubber set that he lost on the playground. I talked about how much I missed Tao and how boring it felt without him, he was so understanding he almost looked like he was gonna cry on my behalf. This pattern continued until the next year when Tao was going to join me in high school.