Newly Not Cis

Shopping Trip From Hell.

Author stuff: As always big thanks to Trismegistus Shandy. This chapter was bigger than usual and I didn't do as well as I could have with the editing. 
Probably going to try and start on a once a week schedule.  Larger chapters I think are coming up so it should be fine.  Again I've started publishing on Scribblehub. Where I update once every 4 days. It's old chapters for now that are being rewritten.

James had agreed to go clothes shopping with his mother, but only if she took him somewhere outside of town. The drive was long and quiet. It wasn't until they were about halfway to the next town over that she tried to talk to him.

"You know I always wanted a little girl?" she thought out loud. "Don't get me wrong, whatever weird thing happened to you I wish it didn't, but I have always wanted a daughter to talk with and teach about womanhood."

It was weird to hear that coming from her. She'd never really mentioned this, maybe it was because right now she thought she had a daughter. He wanted to tell her he was still her son. Not her daughter. But he also needed to hear what she wanted to say.

"It's a little late, I guess, but now I do have my own little girl!" she said; a hint of excitement slipped into her voice. "This is going to be hard, but you will be a beautiful young woman, I promise."

He didn't want to be that, though. He would rather die than be a beautiful woman. He had nothing against women. A lot of them were hot; a lot of them were cool, but he just wasn't one of them. He wasn't a woman. He could barely talk to them. The only girl he could talk to was Katie, and that was only because they'd grown up together. He remembered when he had first looked into the mirror at Nick's house. His face was cute and his body had become girlier. He could possibly look like a young woman or whatever his mum wanted, but he would still be a guy at heart. He needed to stay as a guy as long as possible.

"Mum, I know you want me to be a girl, but I need to look like a guy a little longer, maybe a week or two. I don't think people would understand if I suddenly disappeared," he was pleading. He wanted to feel like himself a little longer and then he would pretend to be a girl for the rest of his life.

"I understand, sweetie. I'll be by your side every step of this process, okay?" She might have treated him like he was a monster this morning, but she was still his mother.

"After we go shopping, I'll go to your school and tell them about the changes that have happened; they should be able to organise something by next week." It was weird and terrifying to hear that, in a week, he would be living as a girl. How was he gonna tell Lachlan and Ben? How would they react? Would they be kind, like Nick and Katie were?

His train of thought was once again halted by his mother.

"Have you thought of a name yet?"

He hadn't. He didn't want to think about changing it. It was his. It wasn't something he could just change.

"No," he said, but he knew he needed to find something.

He began to think of something on the spot. Jane was the obvious choice; it wasn't too much of a change. He thought it would be best to keep something comfortable. It would be temporary, he liked to think; he'd be back to being James in no time. He had to keep hoping he would become a guy again.

"You should think about it; when I was pregnant with you, I had a dozen names picked out for you. I remember one was Janelle. Can you imagine that?"

She talked for the entire car ride. She told him how she had always wanted to go shopping with her daughter. How she wanted to dress her up in the cutest clothes she could find, and how it was going to be good for James to learn about all these girly things. His mother's happiness was important to him, but he couldn't stomach wearing girl's clothes. It made him feel sick. The feeling of wrongness, what Katie had called dysphoria, had been building since he became like this; it felt like it would swallow him whole if he wore girl's clothes. His body felt alien. He felt trapped in a body that was simultaneously his and not his. He wanted to get home and hide again.