I've been staring at this fucking phone for twenty minutes straight. Jamie's text just sits there, glowing up at me like some digital judgment. Sarah wants to talk. Not to me—to Mason. That's who they think I am. I look at my reflection in the black screen between notifications, this person everyone's decided I should be. What a cosmic joke.
The blue nail polish catches light in these tiny electric flashes. It's beautiful in this way that hurts. Not that anyone else would appreciate it. They're all trapped in their algorithmic thinking, swiping through life without seeing a damn thing.
I keep thinking about when I was eight. God, that memory kills me. Mom bought me this remote-controlled truck for my birthday—this overpriced plastic garbage with blinking lights and sounds engineered by some corporation to hit all the dopamine triggers of what a "boy's toy" should be. Dad was practically transcendent with joy. "Come on, buddy! Let's take it for a spin!" Like we were bonding over some profound father-son ritual instead of driving a hunk of plastic in circles. The whole performance of it made me want to scream.
What I wanted—what I actually wanted—was the art set my sister Addalyn had. Watercolors that bled into each other like feelings I couldn't name. Colored pencils that could capture the world how I actually saw it. This sketchbook with thick, gorgeous paper that felt important when you touched it, not like the mass-produced garbage they gave us at school. When Addalyn was at dance practice, I'd sneak into her room just to touch the brushes. Pathetic, I know. But there was something holy about it.
I'd asked for an art set like hers, and you should've seen Mom's face fold into itself. That tight adult smile that says "I'm uncomfortable but don't want to show it." She said, "Wouldn't you rather have something more... boyish?" The way she said "boyish"—like she was offering medicine instead of a gift.
I didn't understand then what I was feeling. I just knew that "boyish" felt like a costume that never fit right. Like wearing someone else's skin.
When I opened that stupid truck, I smiled my school picture smile. The one that never reaches my eyes. "Thanks," I said, and Dad clapped my shoulder hard enough to bruise.
"That's my boy!" he said. Those three words were like little deaths.
I played with that truck exactly once. Then it just sat on my shelf gathering dust, this plastic monument to my failure to be the person they wanted.
The nail polish is dry now. I flex my fingers and watch the color shift under my bedroom light—this small act of rebellion in a house built on conformity. It reminds me of fourth grade, sitting with Addalyn and her friends during recess, watching them braid each other's hair with this careful intimacy. I wanted that so badly I could feel it in my bones.
"Can you do mine?" The words escaped before I could trap them inside.
Addalyn looked at me with this confused kindness. "Your hair's too short, dummy."
One of her friends—Lily, I think—giggled with the casual cruelty kids have. "Boys don't get their hair braided anyway."
"I know," I said quickly, my face burning. "I was just joking."
But I wasn't. That night, I stood in front of the mirror pulling at my short hair. "Please," I whispered to my reflection. "Please grow." Like if I wished hard enough, the universe might rearrange itself around me. I believed in impossible things then.
Dad's football obsession was a special kind of hell. Always going, "Mason, buddy, you've got a good arm! You could be quarterback material!" The delusion of it was almost impressive. I was ten, built like a question mark, and would rather read until 3AM than catch a ball. But Dad was the glorified high school athlete still dining out on ancient victories, and I was supposed to be his second chance.
So every weekend, we'd go to the park—this ritual of disappointment. He'd throw pass after pass, his expression falling with each one I missed.
"Keep your eye on the ball, son!"
"You're not following through!"
"Focus, Mason!"
I tried—not because I cared about football, but because I cared about him. About the fiction of the son he thought he had. But mostly, I dropped the ball. And not just the literal one.
Eventually, Dad stopped asking. "It's okay," he said, messing up my hair with forced casualness. "Not everyone's cut out for sports."
I felt this awful mixture of relief and failure. I'd failed at being the son he wanted. I'd failed at being Mason. But I couldn't tell him I was failing at something I never wanted to succeed at in the first place.
I get up from the floor carefully, protecting my wet nails, and drift to the window. The neighborhood's caught in this Sunday-afternoon stillness. Mr. Patterson mows his lawn with military precision. The Mitchell kids play in their sprinkler, screaming with this uncomplicated joy I can't remember ever feeling.
Normal life. Normal people. What would they think if they knew? If they saw me with blue nails and cherry lips? They'd probably add me to their collection of things they fear without understanding. That's what people do best.
Sixth grade was psychological warfare. That's when the panic attacks started in the boys' locker room. I couldn't explain why changing around other boys made me feel like I was dying, why the testosterone-and-deodorant cocktail in the air made my skin try to separate from my body. I just knew I hated it with an intensity that scared me.
"Probably just anxiety," the school counselor told Mom with clinical detachment. "Common at this age."
She nodded, visibly relieved to have a label that didn't require deeper examination. But it wasn't the right diagnosis. Not even close. Adults are excellent at finding the most convenient explanation, if you want to know the truth.
I was thirteen when I first encountered the word "transgender." Middle of the night, illuminated by blue light, searching for answers about why I felt wrong in my own body. About wanting to be a girl. I don't remember my exact search terms—just desperate questions thrown into the digital void. But the screen filled with results, and there it was. Transgender. The word fell into my mind like it had been waiting there all along.
I read for hours, my heart thundering against my ribs. Stories about people who felt what I felt, who had precise language for the chaos in my head. Dysphoria. Gender identity. Transition. Words that acted like keys, unlocking rooms in myself I'd been afraid to enter.
It was like finding a map when you've been lost your entire conscious existence.
I stayed awake until three, consuming everything I could find. And then, as dawn broke through my curtains, I whispered it aloud for the first time.
"I'm a girl."
The words hung in the air. I thought something cosmic would happen—some fundamental shift in reality. But nothing external changed. The world continued its indifferent rotation. I remained trapped in this body, this life that never fit. But I knew. For once in my performed existence, I knew something real.
I hear a car in the driveway and nearly have a heart attack—they're home early. I rush to the bathroom, frantically scrubbing away evidence, watching blue swirl down the drain. I wipe off lip gloss, change shirts, hide the bracelet in its secret place.
By the time Mom calls up, "Mason, we're home!" I've reconstructed the person they expect. Back to the character I've been playing.
"Coming!" I yell back, checking myself one last time in the mirror. Mason stares back at me. But now I see Ellie too, hiding behind his eyes, waiting.
That night, sleep is impossible. Memories I've been suppressing surface like bodies in water, each one demanding acknowledgment. That time in seventh grade when we had to line up by gender for a field trip, and I stood frozen between two lines until a teacher guided me toward the boys with well-meaning hands that felt like violence.
Or the Christmas when I was eleven and asked Santa for a diary with a lock—something private, something mine—and Dad laughed with this uncomfortable edge. "That's a girl thing, buddy. How about a model airplane instead?" I wanted to scream until my throat bled, but I didn't. I just smiled and nodded like the method actor I've become.
Each memory forms part of a constellation I've been afraid to connect. But now, in darkness, I can see the entire pattern, and it terrifies me with its clarity.
I think about the shoebox under my bed. The name I've written and rewritten until the letters feel sacred. The quiet rightness when I whisper "Ellie" to myself when no one can hear.
I grab my phone and open a browser tab. My fingers hover over the keys before I type:
"How do you know if you're transgender?"
The results cascade, and I click the first link—a resource page for teens trying to understand themselves. There's a list of signs, and I read with my pulse in my throat:
Persistent discomfort with your assigned sex or gender role
Strong desire to be treated as a different gender
Strong conviction that you have typical feelings and reactions of a different gender
I check every box. Every. Single. One.
I read about coming out, transitioning, finding support networks. I read until my eyes burn and the words blur into each other like watercolors.
Coming out. The thought creates this intricate knot of terror in my stomach. How do you tell people that the person they think they know is a fiction? How do you explain that your entire life has been an elaborate performance?
I think about Mom, who organizes my baby pictures in an album labeled "My Little Man" in her perfect handwriting. About Dad, who projected all his athletic dreams onto me. About Jamie, who's known me since we shared crayons but doesn't know the most fundamental truth about who I am.
Would they understand? Would they still love me? Or would I become someone they used to know? I close the browser and set my phone down, staring at ceiling shadows. The house is silent except for the ambient hum of appliances. In that quiet, I can almost hear the truth pulsing inside me, like a second heartbeat that's always been there.
"I'm a girl," I whisper again. "My name is Ellie."
This time, something does shift. Not in the external world, but in me. A certainty, growing stronger with each heartbeat. This is who I am. This is who I've always been, even when I was performing for everyone else's benefit.
I don't know what happens next. I don't know how to bridge the chasm between who I am and who everyone thinks I am.
Is that even possible?