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I woke up at 8:00 the next morning. At least I don’t need to wake up so early while I’m not going to school. I do miss school though, especially now that I seem to finally have made some friends.

(Insert morning routine and uneventful breakfast here, you know the drill)

We left home a little over 9:30 and soon we were at the hospital, It didn’t take long for me to get called in for my appointment with Dr. Walker.

“Hello Sam. How are you feeling today?” She asked me.

“Hello Dr. Walker. I’m feeling pretty well, thank you.”

“Your appearance changed a lot since last time I saw you.”

“In a good way I hope.” I said smiling.

“If you are feeling good about yourself I can’t see how it would be any other way.”

“Thank you Dr.”

“Please call me Amanda.”

“Okay.”

“So, what brings you here today?”

“I’m worried about going back to school. The staff expects a boy to show up and some of the students already expect me as a girl.”

“You already met some of your classmates as a girl?”

“Yes, and they were very nice to me. We even met a couple of the boys of our year yesterday at the movies.”

“Apparently you had a busy weekend. Why don’t you tell me about what happened since I last saw you?”

I told her everything that happened since I got out of the hospital, the slumber party, shopping, the trip to the salon and the movies. I also told her about my dream with daddy.

“You really did have some pretty exiting days. How do you feel about it?”

“I had the time of my life. I had lots of fun. I did get a bit uncomfortable sometimes but it passed quickly.”

“You do seem to be adapting to being a girl much faster than I expect.”

“I think what happened is not that I am adapting to be a girl, I just stopped pretending to be something I’m not. I also think that my dream with daddy helped a lot too.”

“It was a very nice dream. Do you think he would have come to accept the new you?”

“Now I’m pretty sure he would. When I woke up the morning after the dream I thought it was just a dream, but I’m not sure about it anymore.”

“What do you mean? You think it might really been your father?”

“After I told mom about my dream she told me the dream she had with my father the same night, and in both dreams he did accept us and asked us to move on and to say goodbye. He also said he was proud of me for finally being true to myself.” I said feeling the tears building up. “Since then I felt much more comfortable in my own skin. I guess that was a defining moment for me.”

“I can’t say for sure if it was your father or not, but I’d like to believe it was him letting you know that he would be proud of you as long you are true to yourself. You carried a lot of guilt over his death, didn’t you?”

“More than I can say with words. Now I see that I’m not responsible for his actions, but I still wish he could be here with us. I miss him so much.”

  

  
We talked for a long time and in the end she called my mom to talk to her for a bit, so I waited in the reception area. Luckily I brought a magazine with me as I still refuse to touch the ones there.

After about 20 minutes my mom left her office with a smile but looked like she had been crying.

“Are you okay, mom?”

“I’m fine sweetie. It was just a little emotional, that’s all.”

“I’m glad you are okay, mom.”

“Thank you, sweetie. Also I have some good news for you.”

“Oh? Tell me.”

“She gave me the papers needed for us to change your status. You need to think of a middle name now.”

“I already have the perfect one mom, Erika.”

“You mean after grandma?” she said sniffing.

“Yes mom. Do you think she would approve?”

“I’m sure she would. That’s exactly the middle name I was going to give you if you were born a girl.”

“I’m happy you liked it. I don’t remember grandma much, but I know I loved her very much and she was always very nice to me.”

“I think she was the first one that ever noticed you were a bit different, sweetie. She used to say that you should have been born a girl. You were such a sweet child. She used to say you acted exactly how I did at that age. Sometimes she treated you like you were her granddaughter and you seemed to love it when she did that.”

“How old was I?”

“I think it was when you were around 4 or 5. She died not long after that. I still miss her.”

“I miss her too, mom.”

  

  
We went home, mom made a few phone calls and we had a nice quick lunch.

“Sweetie, we need to go to your school in a bit. I made an appointment with the principal to talk about you.”

“Okay mom. I’m going to change then. I don’t want him to have any doubts that I am a girl now.”

“Thinking back I see you were always a girl, sweetie. I’m sorry I didn’t notice it before.”

“Don’t worry about it, mom. It’s true it wasn’t easy for me, but I don’t think I would change anything.”

“You mean If you had the chance to be born a girl you wouldn’t take it?”

“I think I wouldn’t mom.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am who I am because of everything I went through. If I was born a normal girl I wouldn’t be me anymore. I would be someone else. I like to think that what I went through and what I am going through will make me a better person in the end. All the good and the bad things that happen in our lives define who we are. It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be tempted though.”

“Are you sure you are only 16?”

“Why do you say that?”

“That was very deep, sweetie. It is the kind of thing I would expect to hear from an adult and not from a teenager.”

“Mom, I have been thinking a lot and this is just one of the things I been thinking about. If anything in my past changed it would mean that my life would have been different now. That also means that maybe I would have never been friends with Steph or fallen for Jess. Who knows, I might have ended up a real bitch.”

“That’s a very mature way to see things. I really did miss seeing my daughter growing up, didn’t it?”

“Just in some aspects, in others I am still like a little girl that needs her mommy.” I said and hugged her.

“Just don’t grow up too fast. I do want to get to know my daughter before she spread her wings.”

“I won’t mom.”

  

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To be continued....