Chapter 15: 15. Dress

I'm sat on my bed when Beth comes in. Since the incident with the receptionist, my day's been a blur, chasing dysphoric thoughts around. I didn't even think to tell my sister how it went.

I smile when she enters. "You always used to knock," I tell her.

"I did," Beth agrees. "But that was when I thought I had a little brother. It would have been weird for me to just burst into my brother's room—but I don't have a brother, I have a sister. We're both girls. So it doesn't matter." She smirks. "Unless you have a boy round. I know better than to get in the way of my little sister's love life."

"No chance of that," I say.

"Oh, come now," Beth says. "I know it seems hard, but you'll find someone who loves you for who you are. Which, by the way, is a beautiful young woman."

I shake my head. "I won't be having boys round. Not for the reasons you think. I, uh, like girls. I'm a lesbian."

"Oh," says Beth. "Then that makes two of us. Mum's just going to have to get used to the idea of not having grandkids."

"You're a lesbian?"

"Well, strictly speaking I'm bi," she says. "But men are just a bit of eye candy. I'm not sure I could stomach another serious relationship with a man."

I blush. I'm very much not used to talking about boys with my sister. "Girls are so much prettier," I say.

"They certainly are," Beth agrees. "But hey, I didn't come in here just to talk to you about our sexualities. Look, I'm heading off to uni on Saturday, and I doubt I'll be home again until December at the earliest."

Yes. I've been dreading that for some time; Beth has been my insulation against my mother's sour demeanour. Mum might have begun to soften on the idea of me being a girl today, but I can tell she's far from ready to truly see me as her daughter. I suspect without Beth in the house, I'm looking at spending the next few months with nothing but small concessions to my femininity. There's Jessie, of course. But I'm not sure Jessie's parents would exactly be overjoyed at me spending my every free moment with her. Nor is it fair to Jessie to just impress myself on her at all hours of the day. Girlfriends we may be, but she does have a life beyond me too.

Beth doesn't. I don't know what happened—she always seemed to be a social butterfly when she was at school—but she's barely left the house all summer. I've not seen her talking to any of her friends. Really, I get the sense that she's just been ticking down the days until her fresh start at uni.

Since realising I'm a girl, I've come to lean heavily on Beth. She's always around. Always full of love for me. Apparently never engaged with anything of her own.

It reminds me of myself—myself before the realisation, before I knew the cause of my sadness.

A tear snakes down my cheek as I realise that, for all my relying on Beth for support, I've never once asked her how she's feeling. Not about having a sister, especially—just in general. "Beth," I say, "you aren't trans too, are you?"

She looks at me, wide-eyed and confused. "No," she says. "I love being a girl. I wouldn't trade it for the world. What makes you think I might be trans?"

"Just a thought," I say, worried I've upset her. "You've isolated yourself all summer. It reminded me of me—you know, before."

Beth perches on the edge of my bed and hugs me. "There's a million things that can make somebody sad," she says. "Tell me: how did you feel, before you knew you were a girl?"

"Like a... a boy, I guess? A failure of a boy, really."

"No," says Beth. "How did you feel inside?"

"Oh." I think. "Like there was always something weighing me down. You know the butterflies you get before an important test? It was like that but ten times worse and all the time. And I hated looking at myself, even though I didn't know why."

She nods. "That's dysphoria," she says. "And if I were to transition, I wouldn't feel better. I'd just have all of that on top of my existing sadness."

"Then what's the matter?" I take control of the hug, squeezing my sister tightly. "What is it that's got you feeling so down?"

"Do you remember Dad?"

Relinquishing the hug, I shake my head. Mum and Dad split up when I was very small, for reasons Mum was never willing to elaborate on. I know that once upon a time I could remember Dad, but those memories have gone the way of most of my infant memories. When I think of Dad now—which isn't very often, I must admit—there's only a shadow of a ghost in my memory.

Beth smiles weakly. "I was five and a half when Mum and Dad split," she says. "I don't know what Dad did that hurt Mum so. He was always nice to me, always kind, but he must have done something. Tracey Jenkins' Mum and Dad split up because they weren't in love with each other any more, but she still sees her father. But Dad's been absent our whole lives. Not so much as a card. I keep catching myself wondering what he did to deserve that. If he deserved that. And sometimes..." She swallows. "Sometimes I wish I still had a Dad. I could have done with a male relative."

"You had me," I tell her. "I mean, yes, turns out I'm female just like you, but even I didn't know that at the start of the summer."

"Hannah," says Beth, "I'm your sister. I've known you were a girl since you were five years old."

"How come you never told me?"

"You can't crack an egg too early," she says. "All you can do is give it a nurturing environment, and let it hatch on its own."

"And yet you gave me lipstick," I tell her. "Does that not constitute egg-cracking?"

"By that point you were already ready to hatch," says Beth. "That night, when you asked me what was wrong with your chest? And yet your chest was absolutely fine... for a man. For a woman, though... I was already suspicious. Shit, you'd already told me, even if you didn't remember it. And the worst thing that could have happened was you hatching while I was away at uni. Call it a calculated risk, Hannah, but I wanted to be sure I was here for you."

I hit her playfully on the shoulder. "I'm glad you did," I say. "If I hadn't cracked when I did, I might not have got a girlfriend."

Beth squeals. "You have a girlfriend? Proud of you, sis. Who is it?"

"Jessie Porter," I say.

She shakes her head. "Don't know her. But when I'm settled in at uni, you are going to bring her with you and the three of us are going to have a girls' weekend." Another smile. "And clearly this is why sisters know best."

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"No argument there," I say. "And as your sister, it's my duty to tell you that it's going to be a four-person girls' weekend."

Beth frowns. "Hannah, are you in a polycule?"

A what? "I'm talking about your girlfriend, silly," I tell her.

"I don't have one," says Beth. "Shit, do you think I'd have been a bedroom gremlin all summer if I had a girlfriend?"

"Maybe not," I admit, "but you're the second-prettiest girl I know—after Jessie, of course; I'm honour-bound to put her first—and a beautiful person besides. Any girl in the world would be lucky to have you as her girlfriend."

"Stop it," Beth blushes.

"I mean it," I tell her. "You're going to meet the love of your life and the four of us are going to hit the town. Deal?"

Beth nods. "Deal. And look, you got me sidetracked earlier, but I came here to tell you that we're having a family meal on Friday night—me, you and Mum."

"A goodbye meal," I say, sadly.

"Exactly," says Beth. "And I've told Mum that either you come—Hannah, not the mask of Harry she wants you to wear—or I don't ever come back, and she dies a lonely old woman."

I pause. What is Beth saying?

"Which means," she continues, "that you, sweet sister, need a dress."

"A dress?"

"Or a skirt, I guess. Something pretty, though, you wouldn't want to be the odd one out. I'm thinking I'll pick you up after school on Thursday and we can head straight into town. Oh, Hannah, you're going to love dresses—they're so much more comfortable than trousers—"

"I already have a dress," I say.

Beth pauses. "What? Since when?"

And then I realise that I never got round to telling Beth about the dress. I'd stowed it safely away in my wardrobe, lest Mum see it, and promptly forgotten all about letting Beth know. Sheepishly, I tell her that I've had the dress for over a week. "I got it when I went out with Jessie," I tell her. "My friend Olivia did my make-up, too, but she used her own stuff so I don't have any of that."

"Hannah Carden, you're unbelievable," says Beth. "You've had a dress for more than a week—a gift from your girlfriend, who you also forgot to mention—and yet I still haven't seen it. And here I thought we were sisters." She puts her hand over her heart in a gesture of mock hurt. "Where is it?"

"In my wardrobe," I say.

"Well? Aren't you going to put it on?"

I freeze. "Right now? Mum's downstairs. What if she sees?"

Beth shrugs. "So what if she sees? She's coming around, Hannah. It's slow, but it's happening—probably because every time she uses the wrong pronoun for you I'm there going 'she, she, she' in her ear until she corrects herself. Anyway, the point is that Mum is starting to accept that you're her daughter. And anyway, she's going to see you in your dress in three days' time; what do you think is going to change between now and Friday?"

"Nothing, I guess," I say.

"Then what are you waiting for? Come on. I want to see my cutie little sister all dressed up."

"Fine," I sigh. It's true that I have been wanting to wear the dress again. I've just been nervous about Mum's reaction; even after she's begun to thaw, I still hadn't considered dressing up. The last thing I want to do is freak her out by going too fast and undo all the progress she's made on accepting me. But I don't need much cajoling from Beth to go for it. I get up off my bed and cross over to the wardrobe, before reaching for the carrier bag the dress is folded up in. I take the dress out ever so gently, like it's my own flesh and blood, then excuse myself. I need privacy to change in. We might both be girls now, but that doesn't mean I want Beth to see all the horrid crannies of my male body.

I take the dress across the upstairs landing to the bathroom, then start the process of stripping off. All the while I do my best not to see my body; I keep my gaze averted until the dress is safely covering every part of me that I want to keep covered. Only when I can feel the gentle fabric of the skirt brushing against my knees do I dare look in the mirror.

Looking back at me is neither a girl nor a boy. She definitely has a girlish aspect to her—in how she carries herself, and how the dress creates curves as it sits on her—but without make-up she still has the boyish face that 'Harry' used to have. My hair is still much too short for my liking; it's taking on a shaggy look at last, but the cut is nonetheless masculine. It reminds me that I'm still in transition. I am a work in progress. No masterpiece is finished in a day, and I want my body to be perfect. Still, there's only Mum and Beth in the house; both know about me, both know I'm a girl. Neither will judge me for how I look.

After a deep breath and another cheese in the mirror, I leave the sanctuary of the bathroom and cross back to my bedroom.

Beth has gone.

Odd. I'd have thought she'd have waited for me. Frowning, I put my discarded male clothing on the bed, for later sorting, and head to Beth's bedroom. Perhaps I spent too long. She might have grown bored of waiting. But Beth isn't in her own bedroom either.

As I linger on the landing, I hear voices downstairs. Beth must have gone down to get herself a drink; knowing her, this was a deliberate move to make sure I don't chicken out of showing Mum my dress. Fairly typical of Beth, actually. Don't get me wrong, she's wonderful, quite possibly the best person I know, but she's always been the sort to make sure I do things I'm scared about. When I was ten and she was thirteen, we went to a theme park. The rollercoasters and slides freaked me out a bit, but Beth stood with me in all the queues, and wouldn't let me walk away. She knew the fear would only last a moment. The happy memory would last forever.

And she was right. Looking back I don't remember how terrified I was, but I do remember how exhilarating it was to go down those slides and ride those coasters.

So like the theme park queues, I decide to push through to the happy times. I start down the stairs. Nerves draw me to a pause on the second step down, but a few seconds later I talk myself into carrying on.

The voices are coming from the living room. It's just across from the bottom of the stairs. I push open the living room door and step inside, straightening my dress as I do so. "What do you think?" I say.

Then I notice who the three people in the living room are, and my blood goes cold.

We all stare in silence for a second until at last somebody finds it in them to speak. "That looks... wonderful," says Nana.