Daniel and I

by LoriAnn

Dear Dad,

I'm writing this letter because I think you should understand about me and Daniel. I never had the chance to explain to you, so I want to do it now.

I first met Daniel Gates when he transferred into Hawthorne Middle School, where I had been for the past year; we were both in ninth grade, but not in the same home room. In fact, we didn't have any classes together, so the only time I ever saw him was during lunch period.

I probably would never have met him except that, about three weeks after the semester started, I was eating lunch at one of the picnic tables in the schoolyard. Out of a clear blue sky, he walked up and sat down beside me. Since I was neither gregarious nor popular, I was sitting alone. I was fairly happy with my solitude, so I didn't speak, and after about ten minutes of neither of us saying anything, he got up and walked away.

I thought it was really odd that the exact same thing happened the next day, except that he said, "Hi," as he sat down, and I nodded in reply. After about ten minutes he got up and walked away.

The third day things changed. While I was just starting my sandwich, Daniel walked up with a scowl on his face and sat down. Then he demanded I give him my sandwich, but I was not about to give it to him. I think I said, "No way, Jose," and he punched me in the left shoulder. It hurt.

Now, Daniel and I were about the same height, but he was smaller boned and thinner than I was, and I think if one of us were bullying the other, people would probably have assumed that I was bullying him. That wasn't the case though. I had never been very physical, but he apparently was willing to be physical and to be very aggressive about it.

When I told him to leave me the hell alone, he hit me again and again demanded my sandwich. While I didn't like him pushing me around, much less hitting me, I wasn't willing start a war over a sandwich. I had had one school yard fight. It was in fifth grade with Benny Benson, who was very big for his age. He beat me like a drum, and I ended up in the emergency room with a split lip and a broken nose. Benny was suspended from school for three days, small consolation to me. I didn't want another fight no matter who won, so I gave him my ham and Swiss with one bite already gone from it.

The next day I sat in a different part of the school yard.

It took him a few minutes to find me, but find me he did and once again demanded my sandwich. My shoulder was sore and had a nasty bruise on it from the day before, so I gave him my sandwich again. This time the sandwich was liverwurst, and he made a nasty face as he took the first bite. Then despite the nasty face, Daniel finished the sandwich . . . in silence.

When he finished, he looked at me and, in an oddly small voice, said, "I don't want that again, bring something else," he paused and said, "but if you don't, that's alright." Then he walked off.

The next day, I didn't know what to do, but I still didn't want to end up in another school yard brawl, so I made a sandwich for me and one for him. His was a roast beef sandwich with mayo and horseradish on it. He ate it without comment, and that day, I did not go hungry since I had brought myself a liverwurst sandwich. It was liverwurst because I thought that if he were still hungry after the roast beef, he might want my other sandwich, and I knew he didn't like liverwurst. Honestly, it wasn't my favorite either, but I could tolerate it, and Mom had some in the fridge.

That was the way everything went for the next few months. I provided lunch for Daniel everyday, and everyday, he came to where I was sitting, demanded a sandwich, said nothing more, ate the sandwich, sat at the table for a few minutes after he finished eating, and then walked off. His routine never varied, but mine did, at least, my internal routine changed: I became more angry and humiliated by the day. Finally, I decided to do something about it.

I had read an article about female hormones and how some men took them to help them look and feel more feminine. I thought that if I could get my hands on some, they might be able to make him a little less aggressive so he would leave me alone. However, getting them could be a big problem.

I was a delivery boy for a neighborhood independent drugstore then. I think it was the last independent drugstore in the world. All the others were part of some chain, at least, all the others I was familiar with. Remember that I was still only fifteen, so I did my deliveries on a bicycle. Don't laugh. Although my pay per hour wasn't anything to brag about, I was friendly and efficient, so my tips doubled what I got from the drugstore. If you are wondering how I delivered in the rain on a bicycle, I wore a raincoat. It wasn't pleasant, but tips were usually higher, and people did get their prescriptions.

I decided that I could get the hormones from the drugstore, but I was not allowed to be where the drugs were kept. What to do, what to do?

One rainy Saturday, I was making deliveries when an idea came to me: I would have an accident and the prescriptions would get wet. That had happened once before, and all Mr. Jim the pharmacist did was pull off the paperwork from each bag and toss the soggy bags into the special trash box for wasted drugs. What I had to do was wait for a rainy day when I had a delivery that contained two or three packages with hormones in them. Looking on the Internet told me that I was looking for birth control pills or several other drugs that contained female hormones.

It was a month later when my chance came. It was raining cats and dogs, and we had been very busy. Then, early in the afternoon, it happened. I had an unusually large number of deliveries for one run, and among them, were four that contained some pill or other that had female hormones in it. Most of them are no longer on the general market because the health risks involved have been proven to be very high, but then nobody knew.

There were still eight prescriptions, including all of the ones containing hormones, in my basket when I stopped my bike; emptied the hormone pills into a "Baggie," put the vials back into their bags; and then dropped all eight of the bags into a puddle. I jumped in after them. They and my pants up to the knees were wet and dirty.

When I got back to the drug store, I was a mess and the prescriptions were a bigger mess. Mr. Jim was not at all happy about either, but he knew there was always the possibility of something like that happening when it was raining, so he said something perfunctory about my not having been hurt being the most import thing, pulled the paperwork off each prescription, and threw the packages, including the empty ones, into the trash bin without bothering to look in the bags.

By that time, my shift was over, so I went home, and one of the other guys delivered the re-refilled prescriptions.

Monday, I made a liverwurst sandwich for me and a tuna salad sandwich for Daniel and added two or three of the crushed hormone pills to the tuna salad. If I were to do something like that today--something I would not do, by the way--I would be more careful about how much I put into a sandwich and whether I mixed the different drugs, but I was a kid and was more interested in the anticipated results than anything else. I felt as if I were verging on having the situation in hand.

Daniel showed up for lunch as usual. He didn't even have to ask for his sandwich; I just handed it over to him. He scarfed the sandwich down, waited a few minutes, and walked off. For the rest of the week and the five following weeks, I didn't notice any changes, although Daniel did miss a day or two of school.

It was Tuesday of the sixth week that something different finally happened. Instead of Daniel sitting down and demanding his sandwich, he came over to the table and stood waiting. He was just waiting and looking at me. I didn't know what was going on. As we looked at each other, his eyes seemed to be filling up with tears. He wasn't crying, but it looked as if Hoover Dam was going to break at any moment.

I don't have to tell you, dad, but men do not want crying, not by anybody or at anytime. I didn't want to see a person cry, not even the despised bully, Daniel, so I asked him to sit down. He got a big smile on his face, rubbed his eyes with hands, and carefully climbed onto the bench of the picnic table. I didn't say anything, but offered him his drug-laced sandwich.

He said, "Thank you," and took it. I almost fell off the bench. He had thanked me! It was the first time ever. I couldn't believe it, but then as he finished his sandwich, he started crying silently. Then he stood up; sobbed, "I'm sorry"; and ran off.

I almost yelled, "Hallelujah" out loud. My plan had worked. Daniel had started to act more like a girl. He had apologized to me and run off crying. I didn't expect to see him again, not ever, not after that.

The next morning I only made one sandwich.

At noon, oh no, there came Daniel and smiling no less. He walked up to the table and, as he had yesterday, stood until I invited him to sit. As he sat, he said, "Hi, I hope I didn't upset you running off yesterday. I really am sorry."

What the hell? It was a good minute before I could say anything. I was trying to process what had happened yesterday in light of what was happening now. Apparently, Daniel hadn't been apologizing for bullying me, but for starting to cry and running off. He seemed to think we were some kind of friends instead of my being his personal indentured caterer. I repeat, what the hell?

However, what I said was "That's alright," but then I realized that I only had one sandwich. Thinking fast, I told him, "I was almost out of sandwich meat today, so I only have one sandwich, but you can have half if you want." As I said it, what I was thinking was why are you being nice to him, stupid.

Daniel got an even bigger smile on his face and said, "Oh, that's so sweet of you. I'll tell you what; I'll share your sandwich if you will let me buy you a burger after school. We might go to the Whataburger down the street?"

Again, I was at a loss for words . . . for understanding . . . maybe for intelligence, but I finally said, "That's okay; you're welcome to the other half sandwich."

"No, no, no," he said quickly, "you've been bring me lunch for months--and I really appreciate it--but this is my chance to repay you, at least in part. Besides, if I eat half your sandwich, you're going to be starving by the time the bell rings. Please say you'll come with me, and by the way, I'm Daniel Gates."

I had known his name from asking around, but he had finally introduced himself.

I was going to make up another lie about why I couldn't go to the Whataburger with him that afternoon. But I didn't.

Okay, I'm a pushover; I know it, but he seemed so sincere. I almost wrote he seemed so needy, but as I was writing, I realized that he didn't seem needy at all; he just seemed sincere, sincere and happy. I told him, "Well, Daniel, I'm Roger Covarrubias, and I'll do it. Here's your half of the sandwich. Sorry it's liverwurst."

"Oh, no, that's fine. If that's what you're having, that's what I'll have too."

We sat there for the rest of the lunch period and talked, or rather Daniel mostly talked and I mostly listened. It seemed he was talking to make up for the months of sullen silence or maybe just to express his happiness.

When the class bell rang, we settled where we would meet after class, and with a big smile, he ran off to class. I turned and walked toward my classroom with my ears still ringing and my head still spinning. Had the world gone mad, or was it just me?

In class, there was no chance of my concentrating on what was being taught. Instead, I was thinking about what had happened at lunch. The female hormones must have really affected Daniel. I was about out of the hormone pills, but after thinking about how they had changed him, it was just as well. I was horrified and didn't want to feed him anymore of those things.

At the end of the school day, we met at the clock in front of the school, the clock that wasn't right even twice a day. You know the one I mean; every school has one.

As we walked to the Whataburger, Daniel asked me if I had seen Star Wars. Of course, I had, and that gave us something to talk about. It turned out he was a sci-fi aficionado, too. No, I don't mean a sci-fi geek. I took my sci-fi much more seriously than some nit-picky geek, and so did Daniel.

By the time we got to the Whataburger, we were discussing the paradox of Wookies. This time I was doing most of the talking, but Daniel always had a reasonable comment. Why he couldn't have ordered for himself, I don't know, but he gave me a ten dollar bill and told me he wanted a Whataburger and chocolate malt. In those days, you could get two burgers and two malts for less than ten dollars. I ordered and gave the change back to Daniel.

We sat down to wait for our order and continued our conversation on Wookies. I said, "Daniel, there's just no way to explain how Wookies can be as high tech as Chui is on the Millennium Falcon and how low tech they are otherwise." He put up an index finger to stop me and asked, "Would you call me "Dani"? That's what my mom calls me."

I said, "Sure, Danny, but let's change the subject. I can babble on about Star Wars for two days, no two and a half days, three days if I'm really feeling good, but let's not do that now."

"Okay, what do you want to talk about?"

"How about you and me," I replied, and I was surprised at how large his eyes got. I added, "You know, where we're from, how many siblings we have, what music we like. Stuff like that."

His eyes went back to normal and he smiled. "That's great. You start."

There was enough time to find out that both of us lived in single parent homes with our moms and had no brothers or sisters, but then our number was called, and I went and picked up our order. When I got back to the table, we both dug in, so there wasn't much conversation for a while.

Eventually, we finished eating, and Danny said, "I really enjoyed that. Now, what else? What kind of music do you like?"

I began to speak, but at the same time looked at my watch, and instead of telling him about the music I liked, I said, "Shit! I have to get to work. I forgot all about it. I'm sorry, Danny, but I have to eat and run. Uhhh, what do you want for lunch tomorrow?"

"You don't have to do that," he replied, "but it is so sweet of you to think of me."

"Seriously, what would you like?"

"Oh, I'll take whatever you want."

"Even liverwurst?"

"If that's what you want, even liverwurst."

We both waved, and I ran off to the drugstore.

When I got home that night, I had lots to think about. Danny had been my nemesis, but now it seemed we could be friends. I had enjoyed our talk at the Whataburger, and it seemed we had things to talk about, shared interests.

The next day, I took two sandwiches to school, both ham and Swiss.

The rest of the school year continued pretty much the same way; we had lunch together and met after school to talk. Neither of us had made any more friends in school, but we didn't care because we were always together. We also started going to the mall on weekends, and once or twice, Danny came over to my home to watch a movie. He'd never seen Forbidden Planet, so I introduced him to it. You would have thought I had given him a pony for Christmas he was so tickled with the movie, particularly with Anne Francis and how she was dressed. He briefly met my mom that day; however, oddly, I never was invited to his home or to meet his mom.

As summer came closer we began talking about what we were going to do during vacation time. Danny wanted to spend a lot of time at the community pool in the subdivision where he lived and was trying to talk me into doing the same. That seemed fine to me because Danny and I had become best friends and always enjoyed each other's company. However, that wasn't going to happen. My mom decided I was going to spend the summer with the grand parents. I cannot say I was pleased, although I loved my grand parents, but maybe not a whole nine weeks' worth.

Danny, on the other hand, was upset. Maybe "desolate" is a more appropriate word. We were at the food court at the mall when I told him, and all of a sudden he rushed off to the bathroom. When he came back, his eyes were all red. I had to assume he had been crying. I had gotten to know him pretty well and realized that he could be very emotional, so I didn't think poorly of him for crying. Hell, I could have shed a tear over the idea myself.

After Danny returned from the men's room, we talked the whole thing over and decided we could write one another and there would still be three weeks left in the summer when I got back. When we finished, he seemed happier with the arrangement, or at least accepting of it, and tried to keep a positive attitude. In fact, he kept telling me what a great time I was going to have and how good it would be to spend time with all four grandparents back in Oklahoma. He even sang a chorus of "Oklahoma" for me.

The day I left, Danny, was there to see me off. We went aside, away from my mom, and he told me he would write me twice a week, daily if I wanted him to. I told him I would write, and twice a week seemed a good number of times. That meant I would write eighteen letters to him, more than I had written to everybody else in the world up 'til then. I think I would have preferred once a week, but I got the idea that Danny, underneath his excited smile, felt scared and forsaken, so I said yes to two letters a week.

The weeks went by quickly. I wrote two letters a week, worked like a dog on my paternal grandparents' ranch weekdays, and visited my maternal grandparents at their home in Okmulgee on weekends. It wasn't a lot of fun, but it was okay.

In at least one of his letters each week, Danny would ask me who I was dating. I would write back that I didn't have the time or the opportunity to date anyone, and he would write back that I should try to have a good time. I almost made an effort to get a date just to satisfy him that I was having a good time, but something told me that wasn't a very bright idea.

When I got back home, as expected, Mom was there to meet me at the Greyhound terminal, but I was surprised that Danny wasn't there. My arrival time was in my last letter to him, and I was expecting him to show up.

First chance I had, I called Danny.

"Danny, hi. I'm back. How you doing?"

"I am so glad you're finally back. I wish I could have gone to the bus, but I wasn't able to. How are you?"

"I'm fine. Built up a bunch of muscles working on the ranch and grew a little taller; I've also got a tan you won't believe. When can we get together?"

"Well, my idea is right now would be great, but my Mom has got me cleaning the house with her and won't let me go anywhere. I can't even get time off for good behavior. Could we meet tomorrow for lunch?"

"Great. Where?"

"I'll meet you at the food court in the mall at noon, okay?"

"I'll see you then."

I hung up, but I wasn't happy with our conversation. Danny seemed decidedly happy to know I was back, but although I didn't know his mom, from the way he talked about her, she didn't seem to be some Simon Lagree who would make him stay home and work when she knew he wanted to meet me at the terminal.

Then I remembered how many times he had asked me if I had been dating in Oklahoma and figured it out: he had a girlfriend. That's what it was; he had a girlfriend. Well that's great I thought, but even though I was happy for him, I was still a little. . .I don't know. . .let down. If he had a girlfriend, we wouldn't be spending as much time together, and throughout my whole incarceration in Oklahoma, I truly had looked forward to that.

The next day at noon, I was at the food court, and I could see Danny coming up the escalator. He looked a little different. He had definitely been spending time at the pool because he was very well tanned, even darker than me. He also looked to have put on a pound or two. That was hard to tell because he was wearing one of those oversized shirts he liked. This one was kind of Hawaiian and hung down his legs halfway to his knees. His hair was a bit longer, but not a scraggly rats' nest like so many people in our school went for. He looked as if he were a bit shorter than I was now since he hadn't grown during the summer.

When we met, I though he was going to reach out and hug me. He seemed to want to, but instead he stuck out a hand for me to shake, and I did.

We didn't even go order any food, but sat down at one of the tables and started talking, both of us. We both stopped and laughed, and then, he told me how great I looked, so tall, dark, and handsome. Then he began to ask me about my summer. Since we had been writing so much, he already knew about my summer, so I thought this conversation was just a little bit strained. I told him everything went well, and then asked about his summer, something he didn't mention in his letters very much, except for the time he pulled a drowning kid out of the deep end of the swimming pool.

Danny had kept busy too, he said. He had gotten a job at the swimming pool as a lifeguard right after he got the Red Cross certification to be one. I asked him if he had met any nice looking girls at the pool, and he said he had. I figured that this was my chance to ask if he were dating anyone, so I said, "You dog, I bet you've been doing some heavy dating, right?"

He looked a little embarrassed and answered, "No, I didn't do any dating. They were just friends," and he got a look on his face that puzzled me. It looked as if he might have been hoping to date someone or something like that. I wondered if one of his "friends" had hurt him.

"Is something wrong? For a second, you looked like the saddest person in the world."

"No, nothing is wrong." Then his voice went down to a whisper, and I don't think he thought I heard him when he said, "Now that you're back."

We had a nice afternoon, and eventually, we did order some food. It was starting to feel like before school ended, except that Danny still seemed to be reserved just a little, or maybe he was scared, but I didn't know of what.

We ended up seeing a movie, some generic romantic comedy he wanted to see. He really seemed to enjoy it, and I thought it was okay, but not something I'd want to see again.

That evening, Danny called me.

"Hi," he said, "I really enjoyed catching up with you today."

"Good, so did I, but I thought something was bothering you, Danny."

"You know me so well. Something is bothering me, and I want you to know what it is. Could you come over to the house tomorrow evening for supper?"

"Sure, but couldn't you just tell me on the phone?" I replied. "Trust me, I can take it," I added with a little laugh.

"Tomorrow will be better, so I'll see you at what? About six-thirty?"

"You got it, kid. I'll see you at six-thirty tomorrow."

We hung up the phone, but I had no idea what the hell was going on. What kind of secret could he have? Maybe he got married during the summer? More likely he's going steady with some girl he met at the pool. Or maybe he was sick, had some terminal disease. That would be awful. I went on and on like that through most of the night until, exhausted, I fell asleep.

At six-thirty in the afternoon, after getting up late and then starting to worry more about what Danny's secret could be, I rang the doorbell at his mom's home.

She answered the door with a welcoming, "Good evening; it's so nice to finally meet you, Roger," and motioned for me to enter.

Mrs. Gates looked like my favorite aunt, if I had had an aunt, like someone I could confide in and from whom I could always expect a loving reception. That was immediately reassuring, so I said, "Nice meeting you too, Mrs. Gates. Where's Danny?"

"Dani will join us for supper, but first I want to talk to you. There is something you need to know, something that is important to Dani and maybe to you too."

She looked so serious that I didn't object although I thought she was being far too melodramatic.

She invited me to sit down in the living room, and started, "Dani wanted to tell you in person at the bus station yesterday--you should know that--but I thought that it was better for me to explain to you in a quieter place."

I started to speak, but she put up her hand to shush me, and said, "Let me tell you about Dani's childhood. Since she was about four years old, Dani has known that she was a girl."

"What? Be serious, Danny isn't a girl!" I was raising my voice too much, almost shouting, but at the moment this made no sense at all.

"I am very serious, and in a way, you're right. Daniel wasn't born female, but as I said, realized she was a girl at about four. She was never interested in toy guns or trucks or the like. She played with her dolls and her tea set. I thought that was a bit different, but it didn't bother me. However, by the time she was five going on six, I realized that she wasn't just imitating mommy, her only role model, but that something might be wrong, so I brought her to a doctor to find out why she acted like a girl.

I was a little worried that the doctor would not take us seriously, but listened carefully and said he was going to run some tests. He ran his tests, found nothing, and referred us to a psychiatrist who specialized in gender issues. I thank that man every day of my life for that. He could have blown us off, but instead had the wisdom to send Dani to someone who might be able to help her.

After about two months of Dani visiting her, Dr. Greaves, the psychiatrist, told us that Dani was transgendered. That basically means that she has the psyche of a woman, but the body of a man. That may not be a technically precise explanation, but it's close enough.

I went home and cried. I wasn't crying because my baby boy was really a girl, but because I could see that her growing up as this living contradiction was going to be hard for her and for those she got close to. That brings us to you."

At first when Mrs. Gates started her story, I was confused, then mad, and then very mad, but by now I was amazed and hooked on the story. I wanted to know more, but at the same time, I felt a little numb.

Dani's mom continued, "Dani told me recently of the day you two met. She saw you sitting alone at lunch and thought you might like some company. She also thought you were cute, but you ignored her, and since she is quite shy, she walked away disappointed and a little hurt. The next day she wanted to go up to you and start a pleasant conversation. Instead she bullied you into giving her your lunch. When she told me about that, she cried for ten minutes. She hated having done such a thing and particularly having done it to you. Then you started to bring an extra sandwich for her, and your "relationship" prospered, at least it did in her eyes. I don't think she ever talked to you, but for several months, she waited for the day you would start talking to her. I imagine you felt coerced into making my daughter's lunch each day and probably humiliated and resentful. She felt that the two of you had a relationship."

"Are you telling me that Dani thought we were just enjoying lunch together?"

"Yes and no. She knew she liked you and had convinced herself that you liked her, but down deep she realized that a silent relationship was--how can I say it--a bit deficient. It was missing something."

She continued, "It was about then that she started to exhibit some personality changes. She had been dressing in girl's clothes at home since she was five, but now when she bought clothes, her clothes were more feminine and her chest was more padded. She also became very moody, and sometime, for no apparent reason, she would run up to her room and cry her eyes out."

"It was then I made an appointment for Dani with Doctor Rauch who had taken over Dr. Greaves's practice. With Dani's permission, the doctor gave us her conclusions together: Dani was going through puberty as a girl. She had barely begun puberty as a boy when something happened to flood her body with female sex hormones, and everything changed. The doctor asked if I had given Dani the hormones, and I told her the truth, that I hadn't. She asked Dani, and Dani said she hadn't taken anything other than aspirin in the past two or three years and few of those. I didn't think it necessary to tell the doctor where I thought the hormones came from, but I bet you could tell her."

I felt both guilty and embarrassed. I was about to explain my thinking behind feeding Dani the hormones, but she continued talking.

"I think I know what happened and why," she stated, and it was a foolish and dangerous thing for you to have done, but it may all work out for the best. I always had expected that Dani would get into a gender reassignment program when she was eighteen. Before then the doctors would not even start her on female hormones to keep her from becoming more masculine looking, but after she started developing as a female, Dr. Rauch thought it would be best to prescribe the drugs for her that she would have if Dani had been eighteen, an androgen blocker and an estrogen supplement."

"After that, the mood swings got more erratic for a while, but then started to mellow out, and eventually Dani felt very well. She was both confident and happy. It was then that her guilt for bullying you into feeding her lunch for so long began to bother her. She wanted to be sure you really liked her, so one day she walked up to you during lunch and waited for you to ask her to join you. You did. I can't say I understand why, but you did, and the joy of the moment almost broke her heart."

"What? Why?" I asked, totally perplexed.

"For some reason, you asked her to sit down and offered to share your lunch with her."

"I remember it very well," I told her. "I asked her to sit down because she looked as if she were going to start bawling any second, and I can't stand to see people cry. But then she just blurted, 'I'm sorry,' and ran off."

"Roger, let me get back to the parts you don't know. That evening, Dani was on cloud nine, no maybe cloud ten or eleven. You had accepted her and seemed to have forgiven her earlier behavior.

She was so excited about going to school and seeing you the next day that it was hard for me to keep her from camping out in front of the school doors."

"I know what happened after that. I was surprised she came back, but she did, so I invited her to sit down, shared my ONE sandwich with her, and then she started to talk though she had barely said a word to me before. It surprised me, but I actually enjoyed the conversation, despite her dominating it. But what really bowled me over was when she offered to buy me a burger after school. No, that was just very surprising, what bowled me over was that I accepted."

Dani's mom picked up the narrative, "After your post school snack, she came home ecstatic. All she could do was talk about you and your conversation. I think she thought the Wookie paradox was the deepest idea she had ever heard," and she laughed.

"We really had a good time," I added.

"Yes, it was clear that you both did, and that became even more clear as your friendship grew. What also was clear was that you saw her as a buddy, but she saw you as a boyfriend."

This time I didn't yell or scream. I was speechless. "Are you telling me that Dani thinks she's my girlfriend?"

"That's right."

That was why she always asked me if I were dating while I was in Oklahoma. "But what about the girls she met at the pool. Wasn't she dating any of them?"

"Goodness no. They were her girlfriends. She got her lifesaving certification as Dani, a girl, and she wore a girl's swimsuit to work at the pool. Everyone thought she was a girl. She told all her friends that her boyfriend was visiting his grandparents in Oklahoma and turned down every guy who asked her for a date, and there was quite a few of them."

She stopped, so I started, "This is all so hard to believe. How could I have misunderstood for so long? Now it seems obvious, but what's next?"

"Next, Dani comes through the front door in a minute or two, and you get to decide if you can be friends…or a couple…or strangers. It's all up to you."

Just then I heard the key in the door. The door opened, and Dani walked in. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She had on makeup and her hair was done up in a feminine style that looked great on her, and she was wearing a pair of nice looking dark hipsters with a red and blue belt and a crop top that displayed her navel and also showed a little bit of cleavage. The cleavage was what most surprised me, and I blurted, "You've got boobs!"

"Of course, silly, although they still have some growing to do," she replied and smiled.

I just stared at her, but then I started to think that she wasn't real, not a real girl. She looked like a girl, she sounded like a girl, she acted like a girl, but she wasn't a girl, and even if she were, she wasn't my best friend. That was Daniel.

After hearing Mrs. Bates's story, I thought I could handle meeting Dani, but I couldn't. A sense of loss flooded over me; Daniel was gone, and this was somebody I didn't know. Dani walked into the room as I was looking for a place to run. I looked at her mother instead of at her and said, "I can't deal with this. It's too much," and I opened the door and walked out.

I could hear Dani crying as I walked away. I was crying too.

I didn't hear from her or see her for what little was left of the summer. I don't know what she was doing, but I spent my time at home playing video games and watching reruns of Star Trek, the original version. Well, that was what I did . . . when I wasn't thinking about Dani.

When the next school year started, I would be moving to the area high school and so would Dani, who lived in the same area, so I asked my mom to get me transferred to an out of district school because I had been having trouble with bullies and wanted to try a new school, but really it was so I would not have to see her. It would be too painful for me, and I expected for her as well.

I had turned sixteen and gotten my driver's license, so mom matched the money I had saved from working at the drugstore, and I bought an eight year old Honda Civic to drive to school.

Starting a new school where you don't know anyone is tough, and I was nervous, scared, and any word in the thesaurus under either of those two. However, my first morning went well, and by the time the lunch bell rang, I was pretty pleased although I wasn't looking forward to not having company for lunch. I had gotten used to having Dani to talk with.

I looked for an empty table, but couldn't find one, so I sat down at a table with three others at it, a boy and two girls. Since I had decided to try to make more friends at this new school, I said, "Hi," and introduced myself. The first girl gave me a big smile and said she was Tiffany, and the guy introduced himself as guess what? Guy. The guy's name was Guy. I thought that was pretty bizarre. Then I looked at the other girl expecting her to introduce herself, but as she turned her head to look at me, I realized it was Dani.

I controlled myself and did not yell out what are you doing here. But I'll bet my eyes were as big as CDs and my jaw dropped so my chin was scraping on my belt buckle. She looked at me with a pleasant look on her face, but no smile.

Dani was Dani. She was dressed like a girl. She must have changed schools so no one would realize that she had been a boy the year before. Getting the school district to accept her and change her records to Dani or Danielle instead of Daniel must have been difficult, but there she was.

"Dani," I whispered, but then I got control of myself and said, "What a surprise." I looked at the other two and said, "We were in the same school last year."

Dani didn't say anything.

I didn't know what to do, so I said quietly with tears in my eyes, "I brought a sandwich for you." I had made two sandwiches, not because I wanted to eat two, not because I expected to see Dani at school, but because I had a tiny hope that I might see her somewhere, anywhere.

"Thank you," she said and smiled. "I brought my own sandwich, but I would rather eat yours with you."

We ate in complete silence until the other two finished their lunches and wandered off.

Then I wanted to say something, but couldn't think of what to say. Maybe I should comment on the coincidence of both of us transferring to the same school. Instead, I told her I had missed her and was ashamed of myself for the way I acted at her home.

She told me she had missed me. She also said but she understood that I had been shocked and confused, but that my walking out of her home had really hurt her.

I don't want to go into exactly what we said to each other for the rest of the conversation, but you must already have guessed; we made up, and when the bell rang, we walked back to the classroom building hand in hand. When we got there and were about to go to our separate classrooms, we kissed. It was very gentle, sweet, and because it had to be, quick.

That was eight years ago. Since then we have dated exclusively, spent as much time as we could together, and gone to the same university, UT in Austin. I thought it would please you that I went to your alma mater. We both got our graduate degrees recently. I am now a Master of Business Administration, and Dani is a Master of Science in Biology. We're both ready to tackle the real world and both have jobs waiting for us.

I guess you're wondering why, after running out of her home crying, I wanted to see her again, much less be her boyfriend.

When I left her home, I cried all the way home. I didn't even know why exactly. I think it was the loss of Daniel more than anything else. It was as if someone I had know well, my best friend, had died. I didn't expect to ever see Daniel again. About the time I got home, I was thinking he was some girl I didn't even know. Then I thought, no, I said aloud, "Nice boobs though."

That brought me back to reality, and I laughed although I was still crying. After that for about the next two week, when I couldn't concentrate on video games or television, I thought about Dani and finally decided that I must have known she was a girl all along, maybe even from the time she punched me in the shoulder.

You know, when I didn't fight back, I could have. Yes, I didn't want another trip to the emergency room, but Daniel wasn't Benny Benson, and I could have knocked his block off without any trouble, but I didn't. I am not sure why, but I think that somewhere in my subconscious I must have known, at least, that there was something special about this person. After we began talking, there were plenty of clues that could have caused me to think Danny was gay, but I didn't. I just think that there was more going on in my head than my conscious mind could process and accept, so it stayed in the subconscious where I wouldn't have to worry about it. I actually think I had been in love with Dani since the day she started crying because I asked her to sit down and have lunch with me. I just didn't realize it.

After I figured all this out, I was even worse off. I wanted to call her, to see her, to touch her, but all I could think was that I had burned my bridges. I had hurt her too much, and she could never forgive me. Worse yet, I didn't think I deserved to be forgiven.

But I still hoped, so I packed two sandwiches that first day at the new school.

That's about the whole story. There is only one, make that two, things left to do the first is get married, and we're doing that tomorrow. I proposed during our senior year of college. You couldn't believe how much I love her, or how much she loves me.

During the summer break between our junior and senior years in college, Dani, with the approval of all her doctors, had sexual reassignment surgery. I stayed with her in the hospital, and for her sake, I'm glad I did, but for me, I could barely stand seeing her in pain. However, that's all over, and we are ready for that second thing I want to do: go on a honeymoon. While we have been intimate for the past eight years, we decided that we would keep our intimacy above the belt--for the most part--because we both wanted having intercourse to be what any other man and wife would have. We could have done that after she had her operations, but we decided to wait until the honeymoon. I know it seems old fashioned, but that's what we wanted to do.

Dad, I wish you could meet her; she's the most wonderful girl in the world.

I know it has been a long time since you died; I was only twelve, but I want you to know that I still miss you and always will, but someday we'll all meet, and I'll introduce my beautiful bride to you.

Roger

PS

We were married two weeks ago. The wedding was everything I hoped it would be. My wife and I were super happy. Maybe on that day when we meet again, I'll tell you about the honeymoon, but not now. . .and probably not then. I'll just say we enjoyed each other.

 © LoriAnn Rodgers