An Unexpected Fate

The Clinic

Saturday morning had finally arrived. The day Ellie had both been dreading and been excited for. She was still thinking about her kiss with Freya, but as the morning went on, her mind drifted to her appointment. At various points throughout the morning, Gwen, Maple, and Annabeth had texted her to wish her luck, but she hadn't heard anything from Freya.

Around midday, Ellie and her mum drove into town to the clinic. It was a big building that focused on all manners of sexual health. Ellie and her mum walked into a large waiting room area with corridors splitting off in every way. Ellie's mum was given a tablet which she used to enter Ellie's details 

They gave the tablet back to a receptionist and it was a few more minutes before someone came to get them. A slightly older looking woman, with black, greying hair and large, round classes, stepped into the waiting room.

"Ellie?" She said. Ellie nodded as she and her mum stood up. "Actually, is it okay if I talk to Ellie alone first?"

Her mum looked a little taken aback and looked at Ellie. Ellie nodded. "I'll be fine."

"Don't worry, someone will be out to talk to you soon." The woman said. She led Ellie down a hallway that had several offices until she arrived at her own. She unlocked the door and stepped in. It was a decently big room. There was a desk on one side and a few chairs around a coffee table at the other side. "Take a seat over there, Ellie. Do you want some water?"

Ellie shook her head as she sat down, nervously drumming on her legs. The woman grabbed a notebook from her desk and sat down across from Ellie.

"Nervous?" The woman asked. "Don't be, this is just a friendly chat." She flipped to a blank page in her notebook and wrote down Ellie's name. "Okay, Ellie. My name is Claire. Like I said, we're just gonna have a friendly chat so that I can get to understand you better and we can figure out what you need going forward, okay?"

Ellie nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay. First of all, and I'm sorry to hit you with such a hard-hitting question, what does your gender mean to you?" Claire asked.

Ellie thought for a second. "I don't really know. My gender is part of me, I am a girl, but it's only, like, a little part of me. It's a part of who I am, but it's not all that I am. If that makes sense."

Claire smiled. "Absolutely. You say you're a girl, how do you know?"

"The same way any girl knows, I guess. I never really felt like a boy, I never liked doing boy things or being called a boy. But for the last month, I've been living as a girl and I've been really happy. I feel more comfortable, more confident, more like myself. I'm a girl, it's as simple as that." Ellie said, thinking.

"Okay. When did you first start to feel like this?"

"When I was young, I never really felt like I belonged anywhere. When I was young, my dad tried to get me into football and other sports. I did them to spend time with him, but I never really enjoyed it. I hated doing anything that was, like, boy related." Ellie started. "When puberty started, I felt really uncomfortable with what was happening. I hated how hairy I was getting, I hated that my voice was getting deeper, I hated it all. At the same time, though, as the girls in my year were also going through it, I became, like, kinda jealous of them. I wasn't sure what I was jealous of at the time, but I knew I was jealous."

Claire nodded along as Ellie spoke. "Before you came out, did you ever do anything to try and be more feminine?"

Ellie shook her head. "I didn't really know that would help. But the night I came out, I had spent the night with my friend, Freya, and she let me try on a bunch of her clothes and she kinda treated me like I was just another girl and that's when everything fell into place."