Standing Up to Life

Chapter 28:

"MOM! WHAT ARE you doing?" Amy asked sleepily, still holding onto me like a giant teddy bear.

It was then that we both realized what was going on and starting giggling. It really was innocent; neither of us was capable of thinking of the other in any way other than as sisters at this point. But that picture turned out to be something that her parents – and later mine – would razz us about for a long time.

They didn't have a lot of time that morning though, because as soon as I was awake, I was hurried into the shower to wash my hair. They had woken me a good hour earlier than I had any other day on this trip. I wasn't exactly real personable that morning at first, but when Mom came over and started working on my hair it started to make me smile.

Between Mom, Melanie, and Amy my hair was really pretty when it was done. We still had a half-hour before we needed to go downstairs so we made Amy's hair look like mine too. Between the hair and the clothes we were wearing we were sure everyone would assume we were sisters. That made me even happier, since that's what Amy was to me – a sister. All four of us shared quick hugs before heading downstairs to breakfast.

We had timed it so that everyone else would already be downstairs, and gathered around in a circle before I came down. As we came and joined the circle, I saw every guy – even Kyle – drop their jaws in astonishment. Only one of the faces looked at me as though I was a monster from outer space – that was Jarred – the rest were just shocked.

"Hi guys," I said.

"Umm... Brandon?" David asked.

"Actually, that's why everyone is supposed to be gathered right now. I need to tell you all something."

I paused for a second.

"I'm not going to be Brandon anymore – my name is Tiffany now." I told them. Maybe that wasn't the best way to break it... but I didn't come up with anything else at that moment.

"Huh?" David asked again.

"Look, over the past few months I've discovered some things about myself. I've talked to my friends, my parents, and even a specialist. The gist of it is that my mind is that of a girl, even though my body is that of a boy. My doctor has suggested that it would be better for me to live life as Tiffany than it would as Brandon. It's a much longer tale – and is a lot more difficult than I'm making it sound, but eventually I will have a body that matches that of a girl." All of that came stammering out of my mouth. I was beyond nervous.

From there the questions flew about me. I answered a lot of them, but my parents and the other adults fielded a lot of them too. The only guy who seemed to have problems with it was Jarred. The rest for whatever reason actually seemed cool with it. None of them seemed to think that I was contagious – definitely a good start.

When we seemed to have run out of questions we went ahead and got breakfast. Amy and I ended up sitting with Kyle and David. They actually made for two fairly cool people to talk to. I honestly wasn't completely sure what their reason was for sitting with us, but I was happy to see that things weren't going south. Every now and then I noticed Jarred staring at me strangely – I was kind of worried about him.

After breakfast we boarded the bus. Lindsey said, "Your hair is really pretty today, Tiffany."

"Thanks."

"Do you feel better now that you're not hiding the truth anymore?" She asked me.

"Yes, a lot better. I'm sure this is going to cause a lot of trouble going into next year though. Ten to one, by this time next week the school will already be talking about 'that freak' that thinks he's a girl. Oh well though, they're just going to have to deal." I said the last bit with a bit of a bob of my head that made my hair bounce. Lindsey giggled a bit.