Reborn: The Boy Who Discovered He Wasn't
by SabrynaBrooklynne
Chapter 31
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"Hi Carol," Taia greeted, as she stood outside Carol's front door.
"Taia, come in. . . Please, have a seat."
Taia took a seat on the sofa and Carol moved to the kitchen to retrieve two glasses of wine. Returning she handed one to Taia, then settled into the recliner.
"So what is it that you wanted to talk about, Taia?"
"First of all, Carol, I want to say that I wasn't trying to snoop or eavesdrop, but now that I know, there's something I have to tell you."
Taia saw the puzzled look on Carol's face and added, "You'll understand in a moment, bare with me. I was afraid to tell you before. Actually, I've never told anyone before, but now that I know I can, I have to share this with you. This is difficult, so difficult, but something I have to do."
"Taia, I want you to know that you can tell me absolutely anything. Please, continue."
"Thank you, Carol, that means a lot. . . Well, first off, while Becca and Jessica were eating lunch and watching a movie I went out to clean up by the pool where they had been hanging out. While I was out there I picked up a notebook that was lying open on one of the loungers. I had no intentions of reading it. I thought it was one of Becca's notebooks and when I looked at it I saw the first line of the open page. It said, 'I feel like no one understands at all what it's like to be a boy and suddenly find out you're not normal and have PAIS."
Carol's mouth dropped open and she began to shake. Tears started to form in her eyes and she fought to hold them back as Taia continued, "Carol, what caught my eye first was the acronym PAIS, because I just happen to know what it stands for; Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. So, the next thing I did was look at the cover to see the name on it, but there wasn't one. I knew it wasn't Becca's so it had to be Jessica's. I opened the front cover and there, written across the first page was a title that read, 'The private, personal thoughts, feelings and questions of Jessica Conners."
"Taia I can explai---," Carol began before she was interrupted.
"Carol, please, let me finish first." Taia paused and let out a sigh. "Where to start?... Well, Carol, Becca doesn't know this, but I'm not her biological mother."
"So she's adopted? Don't you think she has a right to know eventually? When are you going to tell her?"
"I don't know, soon I'm sure." She stopped and turned to look out the window, in the direction of her house across the park, where Rebecca and Jessica were safely out of earshot of the conversation now taking place.
She thought about Carol's comment for a moment and then, still looking out the window, she continued, "Carol, soon after Becca was born her mom left town, leaving Becca with her father. She left a note saying that she just wasn't ready to raise a child and that she wouldn't be returning.
"Her father was left with a child that he loved very much but didn't want to raise alone so he set out to find someone that would make a good mom for Becca. I met him about four months after her mom skipped town. We started dating and things were going well. I fell in love with him and wanted to marry him and he felt the same. It was a whirlwind romance, I guess you could say. There was a problem though, he didn't know where Becca's mom was living so he could get her to sign divorce papers. We ended up deciding we would just move in together while he attempted to locate her.
"He hired a private investigator to find her and three days into the investigation we find out that Becca's mom was dead. She had killed herself a week after leaving them, drunk and high on meth, she drove her car off the highway and down a steep embankment. Slammed her car into a large tree. They said she was dead on impact."
"Oh, my . . ." Carol gasped, shocked that any mom could abandon their own flesh and blood, and sad over what had happened to Rebecca's birth mother.
"Yeah, well a couple days later her father asked me to marry him and we went to the courthouse and did it. A month later, he asked me if I would adopt baby Becca, he knew how badly I wanted to be a mom and that I couldn't have a child of my own, so he knew how much it would make me happy to be able to say that Becca was 'my daughter'. I was thrilled about it and of course, I immediately said yes.
"Well we went through the lengthy process and after about four months I officially became her mom. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. I finally had everything that I as a child, had ever dreamed of having. I never believed that I ever actually would and in fact, was sure I never would. I had a loving husband and I was now officially a mom. My life, I believed at the time, was finally perfect, but it didn't last."
"What happened?"
Well, About nine months into our marriage her dad finds out about my past. Things I had not told him. Things I was sure he would never find out."
Carol listened intently as Taia continued, "Well he couldn't handle what he found out and so he moved out, took Becca with him, and filed for divorce. Two nights later he got extremely drunk. When he returned to the motel room he had been staying in, he passed out on the bed, vomited in his sleep and was so drunk he. . ." Taia paused and tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back tears.
With the tears streaming down both her cheeks, she tried to continue, " He fell asleep and never woke up. He choke- . . . he, he . . . choked on his own . . . vomit and. . . and died."
Taia began sobbing uncontrollably and Carol moved closer to her on the couch so that Taia could cry on her shoulder. She held Taia tight for several moments and wondered what this had to do with what Taia had accidentally discovered about Jessica.
After several minutes Taia pulled away and wiped her eyes. She sat there for a few seconds more, gathering her thoughts before continuing, "Carol, the reason I haven't ever told Becca that I'm not her birth mother is because I'm afraid. I'm afraid of Becca finding out the things that caused her dad to leave. I have always been afraid that if she does she'll probably hate me too."
"Taia, I doubt anything could make that girl not love the only mother she's ever known. That girl loves and adores you with all her heart," Carol explained, doing all she could to console Taia and convince her that things aren't as bad as she thinks they are.
"Yeah, well you haven't even heard yet what it was that caused her dad to leave and take her with him."
"Taia, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. But if you do I promise to listen without judgment."
"Yeah, I know I don't have to, but I think I need to. I'm pretty sure you'd be the last one to judge me, anyway. I've never told anyone else this but I know that if anyone'll understand, you will." Taia paused and Carol reached out to hold Taia's right hand with her left and the gesture gave Taia the strength to continue.
"Carol, I was born six weeks premature and had to be kept in the hospital in newborn ICU until I gained enough weight and they were sure my internal organs were formed enough to survive. For a while, they didn't think I was going to make it. Other than that I was a normal baby, or so everyone thought. Little did they know that even though I had a boy body, inside I had a brain that told me I should be a girl."
"What?! Oh, my. No way, Taia. I'd never have guessed, not ever." Carol sat there, shocked at what she had just heard.
"Yeah, it's true, Carol. From as young as I can remember I was always very delicate and feminine acting. I always wanted to play with dolls. I was never rough or wanted to play with cars or guns or action figures. My mom says I was five when I started telling her that I was going to grow up to be a mommy just like her. She says that at first, she thought I was just too young and didn't understand the differences between boys and girls. She says she used to tell me that I couldn't be a mommy when I grew up but I could be a strong handsome husband and father just like my dad."
"So even at that young age, you knew something was wrong?"
"I did. Eventually I starting telling my mom that I was a girl, not a boy, and of course, she would try to correct me, not understanding the truth. One day I asked her when my penis, well she says I called it my pee pee, I asked her when my pee pee would fall off and I would start growing boobies like her.
"When she told me that it would never fall off, that girls were born without one I started wishing I could make it go away. I used to even take my scissors, of course, I didn't know any better and only had safety scissors but several times I took them and tried to cut my penis off. One day mom caught me and freaked out. That's when she realized something really wasn't right about me and she sought professional help."
As Taia continued to talk she realized that Carol had taken her other hand as well and was holding both of them tight and this comforted her immensely.
Carol sat there, silently processing all that Taia was telling her and knew that Taia would be able to help Jessica. Carol now saw that Taia was uniquely qualified to understand what Jessica was going through, even if it wasn't necessarily the same thing exactly. She allowed Taia to continue explaining, without interrupting to comment.
"Mom started taking me to a child psychologist who said I was transgendered. She told my mom there was no doubt in her mind I was a girl, born in the wrong body. It took some time for my mom to understand fully. She did eventually begin to get it and the summer I turned nine, for my birthday she took me to a thrift store and let me pick out three outfits from the girl's department. She said she would experiment with letting me live as a girl at home, and see how it went."
"Good, Taia. It's good that she began to understand while you were still young."
"Yeah, I started that summer living as a girl, hidden inside my house, but still having to present as a boy when we went out. After a couple months mom said that she could see that I was a much happier child, as a girl and she could tell that maybe that was who I was supposed to be. Well, that fall she enrolled me at a different school. From that point on, I was living my life totally as a girl.
"At the age of twelve they started giving me male hormone blockers to delay puberty and at fourteen I made the decision to start female hormones. For my eighteenth birthday, my mom took me to a surgeon that specialized in gender reassignment surgery and we discussed my options. Three months later I went under the knife."
Taia stopped at that point to let it all sink in. Sensing the pause Carol began to talk, "Taia, we may not have known each other very long, but I already consider you my closest friend and I love you with all my heart. I mean it honestly, I never would ever have suspected anything like this about you but I want you to know that none of this changes how I feel about you or our friendship."
"Carol, if only I could express just how much that means to me, to hear you say that."
"Well, I mean every word of it. Thank you for sharing this with me." And with that, Carol pulled Taia in for a long embrace.
When Carol finally pulled away she asked, "Taia, have you noticed how Becca and Jessi are with each other? They are as close as two friends could be. Becca loves Jessi with all her heart and she knows everything about Jessi. She is Jessi's biggest supporter. I believe that if . . . no, not if, but when Becca finds out she will accept you unconditionally. I truly don't believe she will see you as any less her mother than she does now. You have to trust her. She has a big heart and is very mature in her understanding."
"Carol," Taia responded, "I can also say that there is no way I would ever have suspected Jessica was born a boy either. How much is the AIS affecting her body? I know she wrote that it was partial and she has breast so I assume that her body is rejecting most of the androgens and not letting it affect her body in a masculine manner?"
"That's right, almost none of the male hormones are able to affect her and the breast are growing because of the amount of naturally occurring female hormones in her body that aren't being countered by the androgen."
"So she's decided she's going to live out her life as a girl?"
"No, she hasn't decided yet. She just started going to a psychologist to work through all this so she can make a decision."
"Carol? Would you mind if I sat down with you and her sometime and talk to her about what she's going through?"
"You do realize that if you reveal your past to her, you'll need to talk to Becca first 'cause she'll find out and it would be better if you did that yourself rather than her finding out from Jessi."
"Yeah, you're right . . . That'll be the hardest part."
"Well, you know I'll be here for you and will help you through it. Whatever you need me to do, just ask."
Carol once again embraced Taia in a loving, supportive hug, which they held for several minutes as they both cried and comforted one another.
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Thoughts?