gayannabeth

  Brief mention of nudity

  [colpse]

  After the hug, we went back to the game, but we were both unfocused on it, which, in hindsight, probably led to some very baffling to watch fights. That hug — that moment of vulnerability between the two of us — hung in the air between us. It lingered in my mind, and I could tell that Rachel was still thinking about it too, even if she didn’t say anything.

  And not just the hug, but everything. The events of the past week — had it really only been a week? It all felt so much more… present in a way nothing in my life had before. It was like a week ago I had barely been a person, and yet… now I was? It was so strange.

  First of all, there was Rachel, formerly Harry. She was cute, and, if she really did intend to finish that game, going to get even cuter. I didn’t know if I could handle it if she did. The knowledge about her actual gender did nothing to change the fact that I see a pretty girl and find her attractive.

  The bigger thing was… I didn’t dislike the changes I’d experienced. At all. I loved no longer having to shave. I’d noticed my voice was no longer rough and scratchy, although it was still lower pitched. I wondered if it would get higher if I kept pying that game. Probably. Did I want that? Oh yes!

  Did I want to be a girl? That was a much more complicated question.

  While, yes, being a girl did sound nice at first, getting to be pretty and whatnot, there were other considerations. Firstly, sexism. It sucked. Secondly, transphobia. I wasn’t an idiot; I knew that, as things stood, being a girl meant, for me, being trans.

  Wait, was I trans?

  Nah, there had to be more to it than just wanting to be a girl. Otherwise everyone would transition. Something bigger, more… I didn’t know what word to use, but I was sure there was something trans girls and women had that I didn’t.

  Wait.

  Was Rachel?

  I mean, it fit, didn’t it? The way that, as Harry, she’d constantly be coming up with conspiracy theories about plots to turn either men in general or her specifically into a girl.

  Surely someone who thought that much about getting turned into a girl… was actually just a girl at heart. It made perfect sense! Plus, this whole ‘pretending to be a girl’ thing had been her idea all along. Should I tell her?

  During my next bathroom break, I pulled out my phone and did a quick Google search.

  should you tell your possibly trans friend you think theyre trans

  I ended up clicking on a Reddit post on the r/Transgender subreddit, which expined everything to me. Apparently there was this thing called the ‘egg prime directive’, which meant that you should not tell your possibly trans friend you think they might be trans. That solved it then! I wasn’t going to tell Rachel I figured she might be trans until she figured it out and told me! So gd I looked it up or I would’ve massively fucked up there.

  Around suppertime, Rachel seemed hesitant to go back home. I knew she still lived with her family, and family could be pretty overbearing, in my experience, so I understood perfectly. Instead, I asked her if she’d like to go out to get dinner with me.

  “What, like… a date?” She frowned. “Wouldn’t that be gay?” I opened my mouth to reply, but she cut me off before any words could form. “No. Or yes? Would it be?” She turned to look at me, a frown on her face. “You look like a cute girl right now,” she said. “So, if I pretend that you are a cute girl, which is not difficult to do, then that means going on a date with you would not be gay. It would be straight since I’m actually a guy. Meanwhile, for you, since I look like a cute girl and you’re actually a guy, that would make it straight.”

  I stared at her, my mouth slightly agape, as I tried to parse what she’d said. “That… makes some amount of sense. I think.”

  “It makes perfect sense!” She excimed.

  “Whatever, it’s not a date anyway,” I said.

  “Oh,” Rachel said. “Oh. Sorry, then.” She suddenly became very interested in her purple and pink striped socks — wait, when did she get socks in such girly colours?

  “So, um, where do you wanna go?”

  “There’s a nice pizza pce down the street,” I said. “It’s not a chain, by the way.”

  “I like the sound of that,” she replied.

  We walked to the restaurant in awkward silence. When we arrived, we asked for a table for two.

  Once we were seated, the waitress tapped the drinks menu and asked, “can I get you dies anything to drink?”

  Ladies.

  She called us dies.

  My breath hitched. That was… I squashed the urge to correct her. No, I’m a dy as far as she and anyone other than myself is concerned right now!

  “I’d like a Coke, please,” Rachel said quietly. Fortunately, the waitress heard her and noted that down, then turned to me.

  “Um, a Coke too, please,” I said.

  The waitress went to the back of the restaurant and took out a couple of cans and a couple of gsses, then brought them over to our table, cracking open the cans and pouring them into the gsses. We thanked her, and she left us with the menus so we could pick what to get.

  “The garlic bread is really good here,” I said.

  “Y-Yeah?” Rachel said, blushing under my gaze.

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “I’m definitely getting some and… ummm… Hawaiian pizza.”

  Rachel blinked. “Seriously?”

  “It’s actually pretty good!” I excimed. “Seriously, people like dogging on it, but the pineapple is actually fucking amazing. Try it!”

  Rachel hesitantly replied, “ok… I’ll try a slice of your pizza. I’m getting good old-fashioned pepperoni, though.”

  “That’s fine,” I said.

  The waitress returned and asked us if we were ready to order, and we did, ordering our pizza choices and a side of garlic bread each.

  “This kinda does feel like a date,” Rachel said quietly. “I mean, I haven’t, um, been on any dates before… but, it’s just the two of us, and we’re at a sit-down non-chain restaurant. And um… well, you are pretty.” She finished her sentence with a blush, refusing to meet my eyes.

  I’m pretty sure I blushed too. “Oh, um, thanks,” I said. “You’re, uh, pretty too.”

  Oh my fuck, her ears were turning red too. That confirmed it then. She was definitely trans. Now, how was I going to help her figure it out?

  I didn’t have to figure that out right away, though. As we waited for our food, we each took out our phones. I started scrolling through Twitter — I refuse to call it X — which had pretty much gone completely down the drain by this point. Angry post, angry post, scam, angry post, Olivia’s boobs-

  Wait, what?

  Blushing, I exited the app. That was… unexpected. I’d followed her Twitter account after finding it linked to her Discord, thinking ‘hey, we’re sorta friends now.’ I had no idea she’d post something like that.

  I flicked through pages of apps on my phone — mostly mobile games I’d downloaded once then never pyed after the first time — before opening up Twitter for a second time, quickly scrolling away from the picture of my new sort-of friend’s titties.

  Only to be confronted by another picture of one of my cssmates — Hazel Lee — which had been retweeted by Olivia. She had her arm around someone I didn’t recognize who was slightly shorter and had red hair.

  I put my phone away when the waitress arrived with our garlic bread, pcing a pte with four slices each in front of us.

  With perfect timing, as soon as Rachel and I finished our garlic bread, the waitress returned with our pizzas. We’d ordered a small size each, and, before getting started, we each traded a slice off our pizzas.

  “You know, pineapple isn’t even native to Hawaii,” Rachel commented as she held up the Hawaiian pizza slice. “Plus, putting pineapple on pizza was first done in Ontario.”

  “I guess ‘Ontarian pizza’ doesn’t have the same ring to it,” I said through a mouthful of pepperoni.

  “Nah, it was all for marketing,” Rachel replied before finally biting into her slice of not-so-Hawaiian pizza.

  “So? How was it?”

  “There wasn’t any pineapple in that bite, hang on a sec,” she said, then took another bite. “Oh, not bad,” she said.

  “So, you like it?”

  She shrugged. “I said ‘not bad’, not ‘good’. I’ll finish this slice, though.” Which she then did. Damn, this girl could sure eat quickly. Then again, so could I. Before long, we were finished.

  “You want dessert too?” I asked. “There’s this really good chocote cake.”

  “Um, sure,” Rachel said.

  When the waitress returned to take our dirty ptes, I ordered a slice of chocote cake for the two of us to share.

  “How have I never taken you there before?” I asked Rachel as we made our way back to my apartment.

  “I know!” she said. “You really should’ve brought me there sooner. That was way better than fucking Pizza Pizza.”

  We continued walking in silence. For a bit.

  “Hey, is it alright if I stay at your pce overnight?” Rachel asked.

  “Sure,” I replied. I knew her parents were rather conservative – they wouldn’t be too happy if they noticed Rachel was… well, Rachel.

  “Thanks,” she said. I gnced over to find her blushing.

  “Hey, wanna grab something to drink?”

  Rachel nodded. “Not beer. Beer, um, it tastes gross now.”

  “Oh, you noticed that too, huh?” I said.

  She nodded. “Yeah. Did our flipping taste buds change?”

  “Guess so,” I said. “Maybe we can get one of those fruity drinks girls like? Actually, I think I have one of those sitting in my fridge.”

  “I’ve always wanted to try those…” Rachel said so quietly I wasn’t sure if she intended for me to hear that.

  Oh yeah. Totally a trans girl.

  gayannabeth