THE NEXT MORNING, I heard several of the other girls stirring and walking around. I decided that meant it was time to get up. I pulled myself out of my sleeping bag and sat up. We all gathered around the table for a breakfast that Mrs. Hancock had sat out. There were all sorts of food and things laid out on the table for us to eat, including cereal, bacon, eggs, muffins, and bagels.
"Morning Tiff." Amy said to me.
"Morning." I said.
We all ate and talked animatedly about the fact that we now had just a little under a week before we were going to Florida! "What are you looking forward to most Tiffany?" Nikki asked me.
"Kennedy Space Center. I've always loved space and stuff." I replied. "You?"
"Magic Kingdom, I can't wait to go by the castle!" She said.
Conversations went like that for a while until we all finished breakfast and changed into our regular clothes. We then helped clean up around the house so that everything was as neat as it had been when we had started.
Mrs. Hancock told my mom she could come a bit later than she had told the other girls parents – so I was the last one there. At that point Mrs. Hancock asked, "Brandon what do you want me to do with Tiffany's swimsuit and pajamas?"
I thought for a second, "Can you keep them here for when I stay over next time?" I asked.
"Sure. You don't have to wear them again though if you don't want to." She hedged.
"I know. Thanks for all of that stuff," I said.
"No problem. Hey Amy why don't you help Brandon get his nail polish off?" She told Amy.
"Come upstairs with me," Amy said. Once we were upstairs she helped me use nail polish remover first on my fingers. When we were done I almost thought about telling her to leave it on the toe nails, but decided I couldn't do that and wear sandals this week. She removed the stuff on my toes before we just sat and chatted for a while.
After about an hour of talking we heard footsteps coming up the stairs and my mom came in the room with Amy's Mom. "Brandon, are you ready to go?"
"Yes," I said and headed downstairs with her.
I saw Amy had put on some shoes to leave too. She must have seen that I was curious 'cause she said, "We're going to go get pictures developed."
"Brandon, if you want to come over Tuesday to work on scrapbooks with us you could." Mrs. Hancock said.
I looked at Mom and she nodded, "Okay, I'll be here!" I said to her. I grabbed my sleeping bag and backpack, and then we drove home.
Dad was sitting at the kitchen table when we got home. "Hey, how was the sleepover?" He asked.
"It was great!" I proceeded to tell them about the sleepover. I had thought a little about leaving out some of the parts – but had since decided to just tell them everything.
"So you had fun with them then?" Dad asked. There was definitely something I couldn't quite read in his eyes.
"Yeah, it was good. It's probably some of the most fun I've ever had." I replied.
Mom jumped in at that point, saying "That's good honey, why don't you go take your stuff to your room and put your dirty clothes in the hamper."
"Okay." I replied and took my stuff to my room. The clothes went in the hamper and I went through the rest of the stuff that was in my bag. I found my two Barbie dolls and put them in the doll house. I then remembered I had forgotten the teddy bear I had won from the scavenger hunt. Oh well, I'd be able to get it on Tuesday if not before.
I decided to lay down and read a book on my bed for a bit. I must have fallen asleep because Mom woke me up for dinner that night. After dinner was cleared away Mom served up some bowls of ice cream and we started enjoying it.
"Brandon, your mom and I have something that we need to talk to you about." Dad said.
"Okay. What?" I figured it was going to be something with the trip to Florida.
"Well... We've been noticing something as this year has gone on." Dad trailed off towards the end.
"It started with you deciding to grow your hair out." Mom said. "You told us that it was because of the rock star thing, and so we decided to just let you do as you wanted."
"Thank you for letting me do that." I said. I was getting nervous; my intuition was telling me something wasn't right.
"But Brandon, then some other things have happened... and I don't want to say we're worried about you... but we are." My dad said.
"Worried about me how?" I asked. Oh crap... I wasn't expecting this today.
"Well... Brandon, what would you say if I told you we had to cut your hair?" My mom asked.
"YOU CAN'T CUT MY HAIR!!!!" I practically screamed.
"Hold it." Mom said before I could storm to my room and hide. "I didn't say we were going to, I asked what you would do if we said you had to cut it. But I guess that was a pretty clear idea of that. Why do you want your hair like this? I don't believe it's because of the rock star idea." Mom asked.
"Umm..." Crap, crap, crap... How do I answer this? I felt a cold sweat come over my body, with all of the color draining from my face, I was sure my heart had stopped.
"Your mom and I have our own theory, and I don't want you to be afraid to tell us. I guarantee no matter what you tell us we'll still love and support you." Dad said gently. Mom nodded.
I sat there for a moment with a blank look on my face... "Because..." I started crying... "I wish... I want... to be..." I couldn't go any farther.
"A girl?" My mom asked gently.
I nodded and the tears just flew out at this point. Both of my parents hugged me and kept saying reassuring things to me. I cried and cried for the better part of an hour before I finally calmed down.
I had heard my parents trying to get my attention somehow and I hadn't been able to focus on anything. I heard, "Tiffany." That brought my attention to my Mom's face.
"Sweetie, do you think you can talk now? Or do you want to wait until tomorrow?" Dad asked.
I didn't know what to do. My parents said they still loved me, but they would never let me keep my hair now would they? What was worse is they would probably never let me go over to Amy's house again. They'd also be taking away my Barbies and doll house of course... would they even keep me? Maybe I could go live with Amy's family...
"Tiffany come back to us." Dad said. He was calling me Tiffany. How did they even know about Tiffany?
I found I was having a hard time trying to even think. Everything just seemed to be spinning around in front of me, and I couldn't control any of it. As soon as I was sure that I must be stuck like this, I felt my hair being stroked and a hand on my chin. I began to make out my dad's face as he said, "Tiffany? Please talk to us sweetie." The look on his face scared me – he looked terrified or something, it was a look I'd never seen on anyone's face before. As I slowly regained my sense, I found that I was now sitting on the floor in the living room. How had I gotten here? I saw that they had moved the coffee table out of the way.
"What?" I managed to ask.
"Sweetie, it's okay. We really still do love you. Here take a drink." Mom said handing me a glass of water. I managed to take a sip and grimaced at the taste through all of the salt from my tears.
I managed to mutter, "Thanks."
"Do you think you're alright to talk a little bit now?" Dad asked.
"I'll try..."
"Look sweetie, why don't you just listen while I tell you what we know and how long we've known, okay?" Mom said. I nodded. "We suspected something about the hair early on, but didn't say anything. On the ski trip Mrs. Hancock noticed some things and told us about them. She didn't know anything for certain, but she thought it was something we should know about."
"On the band trip then, when I found out that you had let the girls play with your hair, but didn't take it all out on the first chance I started looking into things a bit more. Then when Mrs. Hancock found you two playing with Barbies she also decided that there might be something more to it and let me know to keep an eye out for anything else. She also called me one night when you were staying with Amy. She figured out that you two had been playing with your hair again – and it looked like you had been wearing some of Amy's clip-on earrings." How could she possibly have known that?
"We talked on the phone for a long time that night about everything – and after speaking to your dad – we decided to put a test out there to see if we couldn't find out for certain. That's when Mrs. Hancock suggested that you wear Amy's swimsuit. She said you didn't exactly jump to it, but you definitely were trying to look like you weren't jumping to it."
"The final two pieces for us were put in place when you didn't just give the Barbie stuff away, and went along so easily with last night's stuff." Mom finished.
I sat there in stunned silence. Not only had they known for a long time, but they had set me up with opportunities to try being a girl. I had always assumed that Dad would beat me senseless or something. He'd talked so many times against 'queers,' and I figured I fit that description better than anyone. "So you're really not mad at me?" I asked.
"No sweetie, we're not." Dad replied.
"But... you always said..." I stammered.
"Forget what I've always said. I'm not saying I understand any of this, but I do think there is more to this than you just being different." He said gently.
"Look sweetie, we both love you very much... and we can tell that there is something to this for you. We want to take you to see someone on Monday."
"A shrink?" I asked.
"Well, in a manner of speaking yes." Mom said.
"Look, before we can do anything with this, we need a professional opinion. This lady has a lot of experience helping out with things like this... and Mrs. Hancock holds her in really high regard. She's also really nice – we've already met with her a couple times." Dad added.
"You already met with her?" I looked at them incredulously. I sat quietly in shock for several moments before saying "Okay, I'll see her. But, you have to promise me something." I said.
"What?" Dad asked.
"You can't break up my friendship with Amy, you can't take away the stuff in my room, and you won't make me cut my hair if I don't want to."
"We promise." Mom said quickly.
At that point Istarted sobbing some more and I don't really remember anything else from thatnight.
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