Scene 32¶
Scene 32 Bridge¶
Briefing¶
[from Notes26-01-22]
[26-01-22]
” (Lauren POV)**
Mara didn’t do heart-to-hearts.
She did facts, and then she did what you did next.
I caught her before the room fully woke—before the steam, before the scissors found their rhythm—when she was alone at the big table with a piece of brown card and a pencil, making a line behave.
She looked up when I came in. One glance. Assessment.
“Problem?” she said.
I didn’t waste words.
“Not a Wardrobe problem,” I said. “A Charli problem.”
Mara’s pencil paused. Not surprise. Attention.
I stayed standing. I kept my voice flat.
“She bought an anti-androgen online,” I said. “Has been taking it unsupervised. We stopped it. We’re getting her medical oversight. Bloodwork. Specialist. Proper pathway.”
Mara’s face didn’t change, but her jaw set—like something in the world had annoyed her by being preventable.
“How long?” she asked.
“Months,” I said. “Long enough.”
Mara exhaled once through her nose.
“Of course she did,” she said, and it wasn’t judgement. It was simple recognition: a girl alone will do what a girl thinks she has to do.
I braced for anger. Mara didn’t give me anger. She gave me standards.
“Good,” she said. “Now it’s supervised.”
“Yes.”
Mara’s pencil tapped the table once, like a period at the end of a sentence.
“Then we stop improvising around her,” she said. “We build around her.”
I swallowed. “She’s been scared of... changes.”
Mara’s eyes lifted, sharp.
“She’s scared of not belonging,” Mara corrected. “Different fear. Same outcome.”
She went back to her line. Straight. Unforgiving. Useful.
“Tell Celeste,” she added, as if I hadn’t been living in Celeste’s apartment for half the night already. “And tell her this: I don’t need details. I need the constraints.”
I nodded. “Constraints?”
Mara finally looked up again.
“What she can and can’t do. When she needs breaks. Any risk. Any mood swings. Any fainting. Anything that changes the work,” Mara said, brisk. Then her voice lowered, just slightly—Mara’s version of care.
“And if she starts apologising again, shut it down. That habit will kill her faster than a needle.”
I didn’t trust my voice, so I nodded.
Mara’s pencil moved again.
“Bring her in,” she said. “Same standards. More guardrails.”
Not rescue. Not pity.
Belonging, Mara-style: structure that holds.
Notes26-01-25fra¶
32 Fragment A¶
[26-01-25]
✨ Fragment by Emily ✨
I saw her before she saw me.
She came out of Wardrobe with a tote on her shoulder and that careful, taught-in-the-room way of moving: as if the world was full of sharp corners and she’d learned how to walk between them without bleeding.
For half a second my brain tried to make her my son again—easy, familiar, a habit with teeth.
Then she lifted her head and met my eyes, and the habit didn’t fit.
She climbed into the car and shut the door with both hands, like she wanted the sound to be gentle.
“Seatbelt,” I said, because I needed something I could do correctly.
She clicked it in.
I pulled out of the carpark. The road was bright, the kind of midday light that made everything look unforgivingly true.
“Any dizziness?” I asked. “Headaches? Heart doing anything weird?”
“No,” she said. Then, after a beat: “Not... not like that.”
Good. I told myself it was good. The part of me that had been awake all night didn’t believe in good. It believed in managed.
“Okay,” I said. “We’re going to tell the doctor exactly what you told Celeste. Exactly what you did. No minimising.”
Her fingers tightened on the strap of her tote. “I’m not trying to—”
“I know.”
I meant it. I also didn’t. Both were true.
We drove for almost a minute before the other question pushed up through my ribs. The one I hadn’t earned.
“Do you...” I started, then stopped, because even the verb felt dangerous.
She stared straight ahead as if the windscreen could answer for her.
I tried again. “Do you want me to call you my daughter?”
Her breath caught. Not excitement. Not relief. Something like fear—like stepping onto a bridge and feeling it sway.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I just...”
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. “Just what.”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t want to be called sir.”
The word sounded filthy in the small space of the car.
“Okay,” I said, too quickly.
“And I don’t want to be called son,” she added, voice shaking now. “It makes my stomach go... cold.”
My throat tightened. The old grief note tried to rise—How did I fail him?—and I shut it down the way you shut a door in a storm.
“When someone calls you that,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road, “what happens inside you.”
She blinked rapidly. “It feels like... I’m being pushed somewhere. Like the world is deciding for me.”
My chest ached. Not because I understood. Because I could hear how long she’d been alone with it.
“All right,” I said. “Then we start there.”
She turned to look at me—small, searching.
I didn’t soften the plan. I softened the promise.
“I won’t call you that,” I said. “Not ever. We’ll let the doctor help us with the rest. But I can do that much today.”
Her shoulders dropped a fraction, like she’d been holding herself up with wire.
“Okay,” she whispered.
And for the first time since last night, I felt something in me loosen that wasn’t denial.
It was resolve.
Notes26-01-25e¶
Car Scene A¶
[26-01-25]
✨ The Car ✨
Scene 32 — “The Car” (Lauren POV, past tense)
I saw her before she saw me.
Wardrobe’s side door opened with its usual hush—no grand entrance, no stage—and Charli stepped out like she’d been trained to move through a room without catching on anything sharp. Tote on her shoulder. Hair brushed back, still damp at the ends as if she’d rushed it. A cardigan that had no business looking that good on a kid who used to live in hoodies and disappear.
A week ago I would have called it improvement.
Today it looked like evidence.
She didn’t spot me at first. She paused on the step and glanced down the street, blinking against the sun, and for half a second my mind tried to do what it had always done: That’s my son. That’s my boy. That’s—
The thought landed wrong. Not morally wrong. Factually wrong. Like trying to click a lid onto a container that no longer fit the shape of what was inside it.
Then her eyes found mine.
She froze, just a fraction—an animal checking whether the world is safe—then she walked towards the car.
Not relief. Not comfort.
A kind of braced surrender.
I’m here. You can undo me.
I had to swallow. I had to keep my face calm. I had to be the adult.
She opened the passenger door and slid in, careful of her knees, careful of her tote, careful of everything.
“Seatbelt,” I said, because I needed one thing I could do correctly right now.
She clicked it in.
Her hands stayed on the strap for a moment, as if the pressure of it helped.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. “Physically.”
She stared at the dashboard. “Fine.”
“Fine fine, or fine like you’re trying to keep me from looking too closely.”
A tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth. A ghost of humour that didn’t quite make it to the surface.
“Fine,” she said again, and this time it meant something closer to truth.
I pulled out of the carpark. The midday light was harsh and honest, turning the windscreen into a bright sheet that showed every smudge. The road in front of me felt like a corridor.
“Any dizziness?” I asked. “Headaches. Heart racing. Nausea.”
“No.”
“Okay,” I said, and my fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “You tell me if that changes.”
She nodded, small.
The silence filled itself quickly, the way it always did when there was something both of us knew and neither of us wanted to say first.
I was the mother. That was my job.
But lately the job had started to feel like learning a new language with a mouth full of stones.
“We’re going to the doctor,” I said, as if it needed stating. As if naming it made it manageable. “We’re going to do this properly.”
Her shoulders rose, then fell. She didn’t argue. She didn’t push back.
That was new.
Or maybe it wasn’t new. Maybe it was what I’d missed. The way she had learned to become compliant when she didn’t know what else to be.
I felt heat behind my eyes and forced it down.
“What do you want me to tell them?” she asked suddenly, voice small.
I glanced at her. “Tell them the truth.”
Her fingers twisted in her lap. “What if the truth—”
“We’re not going to borrow trouble,” I said, too quickly. I softened it on the second breath. “We tell them: you’ve been taking something you shouldn’t have been taking alone. We tell them you stopped. We tell them you’re frightened. We ask for bloodwork, baselines, and a plan.”
A plan. A list. Numbers. Things I could hold.
She nodded.
Then she said, barely audible: “Are you... mad at me.”
The question wasn’t drama. It was fear, pure and plain: Am I about to lose you.
I kept my eyes on the road.
“I’m not mad at you for wanting relief,” I said. “I’m mad at the secret. I’m mad at how alone you’ve been.”
Her throat bobbed. She swallowed hard.
I hadn’t meant to say “alone.” It came out anyway, like truth does when it’s been waiting too long.
We drove another block. The world outside went on being ordinary: a dog in a yard, a cyclist, a woman carrying groceries. The cruelty of normality made my jaw ache.
I could ask her the big question. The one my friends would ask. The one the internet would ask. The one that sounded like it would solve everything if she just answered it correctly:
Do you want to be my daughter or my son?
But I didn’t. Not yet.
Because that wasn’t what she needed to answer.
What she needed was to not be pushed.
So I asked the question that mattered.
“When someone calls you ‘sir,’” I said, “what does it do.”
Her fingers stilled.
“It...” She licked her lips. “It makes me feel... sick.”
“Sick how.”
She turned her head slightly, as if she didn’t want to look directly at the words.
“Like my stomach drops,” she whispered. “Like—” She shook her head, frustrated. “Like I’m being shoved.”
I inhaled slowly. “Shoved where.”
“Somewhere I don’t want to go,” she said. Then, with a sudden sharpness that startled me: “Somewhere I can’t come back from.”
There it was. Not “back” as in returning to masculinity—back as in past the point of no return. The cliff edge.
I kept my face steady, but inside something twisted. Grief, yes. Fear. And a kind of fury at myself that I didn’t even know where to put.
“I won’t call you that,” I said. “Not ever.”
She blinked rapidly. “Mum—”
“No,” I said, and I made it gentle. “That much is easy. I can do that today.”
Her shoulders dropped a fraction. A tiny release. Not salvation. Relief.
“What do you want me to call you,” I asked.
She stared at her lap.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Charli’s... fine.”
Charli’s fine.
Fine the way “fine” had been fine.
A workable answer. A handhold.
“Okay,” I said. “Charli.”
She breathed out as if she’d been holding it.
We came to a red light. I watched her in the corner of my eye: damp hair, pale skin, hands too careful. She looked young, suddenly. Not the awkward child I’d spent years worrying about, not the fragile boy I’d tried to protect from a world that chewed boys up.
My son.
The word rose, hot and automatic.
I swallowed it. It still hurt.
I didn’t know how to let it go.
I just knew I couldn’t put it on her.
“You don’t have to know today,” I said. “The doctor doesn’t need a philosophy. They need the facts.”
She nodded.
“And you,” I added, because it mattered, “don’t have to earn care by having perfect language.”
That made her look up.
Her eyes were bright. Not tears yet. But close.
I didn’t reach over. I didn’t touch her. I didn’t make it about me.
I drove.
The clinic carpark was crowded. I found a spot and turned the engine off. The sudden silence made everything feel louder.
Charli’s hand hovered over the door handle, then stopped.
“What if they make it... weird,” she whispered.
“They won’t,” I said, and I meant it the way you mean a promise you haven’t fully tested. “And if they do, we leave. We can change doctors. We’re not begging anyone for your dignity.”
She stared at me, stunned. Like she’d never imagined dignity as something you could refuse to barter.
I held her gaze.
“You’re not a problem to be solved,” I said. “You’re my kid. We’re getting you looked after.”
Her mouth trembled. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I echoed.
We got out.
I walked beside her, close enough that my shoulder could catch hers if she faltered, far enough that she wasn’t being steered like a shopping trolley.
At the door she hesitated.
I put my hand on the small of her back—brief, light, not a shove. A signal.
Here. With you. Not over you.
She went in.
When we came out again, the sun looked different.
Not softer exactly. Just... less hostile.
Charli’s cheeks were pink. Not makeup. Not embarrassment. The faint flush of someone who’s been spoken to like a person and is trying to decide whether to believe it.
She held a folded paper in her hand, gripping it too tightly.
“What’s that,” I asked as we walked to the car.
“Pathology form,” she said, voice flat with nerves. “Bloods.”
“Good,” I said. Good the way “good” should have been said last night.
We got into the car. She buckled in. I started the engine. The air conditioner hummed. Life resumed its mundane rhythm.
I waited one full block before I asked, “How was it.”
She swallowed.
“They didn’t...” Her voice cracked on the first word. She tried again. “They didn’t yell. They didn’t... look at me like I was—”
“Like you were stupid.”
She nodded.
“They asked questions,” she said. “Normal questions.”
“Good.”
“They asked what dose,” she added, and her fingers tightened on the paper. “And I told them. And they said... they said it was good I stopped on my own, but not good that I was doing it at all without... you know.”
“Supervision,” I said.
She nodded again.
A beat.
“And then,” she said quietly, “they asked what I wanted.”
My throat tightened.
“What did you say.”
Charli stared out the window at a row of trees that didn’t deserve to be so calm.
“I didn’t know,” she admitted. “I said... I don’t want to be called sir.”
That was all. Just that.
And the fact that it was enough made something in me ache.
“And what did they say.”
“They said,” Charli whispered, “that was useful information.”
Useful.
Not weird. Not dramatic. Not attention-seeking.
Useful.
My grip on the steering wheel tightened.
“That’s a good doctor,” I said.
Charli nodded, tiny.
“They said... they want to check potassium,” she added, stumbling over the word like it didn’t belong in her mouth. “And kidneys. And... hormones. Baseline.”
“Right,” I said, and the competence in it steadied me. “That’s exactly what we needed.”
She shifted in her seat, then said in a rush, as if she was afraid she’d lose nerve:
“They didn’t say I had to... decide today.”
I glanced at her. “No.”
“They said...” She frowned, searching for the sentence. “They said it can be... step-by-step.”
Step-by-step. A ladder instead of a cliff.
I felt my eyes burn and looked away quickly, checking a mirror that didn’t need checking.
“Good,” I said again, and this time it came out rough.
Charli’s gaze slid toward me, cautious.
“Mum?”
“Yes.”
She hesitated.
“Are you... disappointed.”
The question landed like a punch.
This was the part I hated most: that my feelings had become something she had to manage.
I exhaled slowly.
“I’m scared,” I said. “I’m allowed to be scared. But I’m not disappointed in you.”
Her shoulders loosened—one notch, like a belt.
“I keep thinking,” she whispered, “that I’m going to ruin everything.”
“What everything.”
“The girls,” she said. “The room. Wardrobe. You. Celeste. I...” Her mouth trembled. “If I start looking—”
“Don’t,” I said, too sharp.
She flinched.
I corrected myself. Softer. Precise.
“Don’t borrow that future,” I said. “Not today.”
She swallowed hard.
“But it was happening,” she said. “It was starting. The... horrible feeling.”
I felt the old pronoun press against my teeth. He. My son. My boy.
I bit it back.
Not because it wasn’t real to me.
Because it wasn’t the point.
“What did the doctor say about that feeling,” I asked.
Charli blinked rapidly. “They said... it matters. They said—” She swallowed. “They said we shouldn’t ignore it.”
I nodded.
And in that nod I felt something changing inside me. Not acceptance as a banner. Not ideology. Something simpler.
A willingness to let the facts lead.
Charli was in pain.
Charli had found relief.
Charli needed supervision.
Charli deserved dignity.
Those were my rails.
I could run on those rails while the rest of me caught up.
We drove for a minute in silence.
Then Charli said, so quietly I almost missed it:
“Did you... hate the word.”
“The word.”
“Daughter,” she whispered.
My chest tightened. Honest question. No trap. Just fear.
I kept my eyes on the road.
“I don’t hate it,” I said. And then I forced myself to go further—because she deserved truth, not comfort theatre. “It’s... new in my mouth.”
She looked down.
I added, carefully: “But I can learn.”
Her breath hitched.
I didn’t say I always wanted a daughter. That would have been a lie. And the lie would have been poison.
I didn’t say you were always meant to be this. That would have been a story I used to make myself feel wise.
I said the only thing I could stand on.
“I can learn,” I repeated. “And I’m here.”
Charli turned her face toward the window. I saw her wipe at her cheek quickly, like she was embarrassed by the fact that feeling still leaked out of her.
“Okay,” she whispered.
And the okay this time sounded like trust.
Not huge. Not permanent.
But real.
As we approached the turnoff back toward the apartment, my mind flicked—unbidden—to Celeste. The way she’d stood last night, disciplined and too young to be that controlled. The way her care had been visible even while she tried to keep it hidden.
Two women. Two kinds of authority.
The rivalry could have been there if I’d wanted it.
But there was no room for that kind of story today.
Today there was only my child in the passenger seat, holding a pathology form like it was a map out of the dark.
I signalled left.
“We’ll get those bloods done now,” I said. “Then we’ll go home. Food. Water. Quiet.”
Charli nodded.
And for the first time in days, the nod didn’t look like surrender.
It looked like choice.
Notes26-01-25eb¶
Austere End¶
[26-01-25]
✨ Austere 32 ✨
Scene 32 ending — austere variant (Lauren POV, past tense)
We drove for a minute in silence, the kind that isn’t absence but containment.
Charli kept the pathology form folded tight in her fist, knuckles pale. I could see the tremor that came and went in her fingers, as if her body hadn’t decided whether it was allowed to relax yet.
“Mum?” she said.
“Yes.”
Her voice dropped even lower. “Are you... disappointed.”
The question hit with a simple cruelty: not the words, but the fact that she had learned to ask it. That she had learned her mother’s feelings were weather she needed to monitor.
I exhaled slowly, careful not to make it sound like a sigh.
“I’m scared,” I said. “I’m allowed to be scared.”
She went still.
“And I’m not disappointed in you,” I added. “I’m angry you were left alone with this. I’m angry you thought you had to carry it in secret. But I’m not disappointed in you.”
Charli stared at the dash. Her throat bobbed.
“I keep thinking I’m going to ruin everything,” she whispered.
“What everything.”
“The girls,” she said. “The room. Wardrobe. You. Celeste.” Her mouth trembled. “If I start looking—”
“Don’t,” I said too sharply.
She flinched. I hated myself for it.
I corrected without making it a performance.
“Don’t borrow that future,” I said. “Not today. Not when we’ve just been given an actual plan.”
She swallowed hard.
“But it was happening,” she said. “It was starting. The horrible feeling.”
I could feel the old pronoun push up behind my teeth like a reflex: son. The shape of a life I’d thought I was raising. The shape I had loved because it was familiar.
I bit down on it.
Not because it wasn’t real to me.
Because it wasn’t the point.
“What did the doctor say about the feeling,” I asked.
“They said it matters,” Charli whispered. “They said we shouldn’t ignore it.”
I nodded. Once. Keeping my eyes on the road.
We passed a row of houses with lawns clipped into obedience. A dog barked. A sprinkler ticked. The world kept offering its normality like an insult.
Charli shifted in her seat.
“Did you...” She hesitated. “Did you hate the word.”
“The word.”
“Daughter,” she said, barely audible.
My chest tightened. The question wasn’t a trap. It was fear, plain as a bruise: If I ask for this, will you leave.
I kept my gaze forward.
“I don’t hate it,” I said. The truth came out careful. “It’s... new in my mouth.”
Her face turned slightly toward the window, as if looking at me was too much.
I forced myself not to soften it into a lie.
I didn’t say I’d always wanted this. I didn’t say I’d always known. I didn’t say anything that would make me feel generous and wise at her expense.
I said what I could stand on.
“I can learn,” I said. “And I’m here.”
A beat.
Then, in a voice so small it scared me: “Okay.”
We drove on.
At the next intersection I signalled left, then right, then left again — routes I’d driven a hundred times. My hands knew them. My head didn’t.
Because underneath everything I was doing — the appointment, the bloodwork, the plan — there was still that low, stubborn thrum I hadn’t killed yet:
How did I fail him.
It wasn’t even a sentence I believed. It was a reflex. A grief groove. A prayer said the wrong way.
I kept it off my face.
I kept it out of my mouth.
I let it exist where it belonged: in me, not on her.
“We’ll go straight to pathology,” I said. “Then home. Food. Water. Quiet.”
Charli nodded, small and obedient, like she’d learned to become manageable when she didn’t know what else to be.
I hated that too.
At the pathology place, I parked, killed the engine, and sat for one extra second with my hands on the wheel. My fingers were cramped from gripping too hard.
“This bit won’t take long,” I said.
Charli nodded again. She didn’t look at me.
I got out first and walked around to her side. Not to shepherd her. Not to hover.
Just to be there when she stepped out into the world again.
As she closed the car door, she held the folded form against her chest like it was something fragile and necessary.
I watched her take one breath, then another, and start walking.
And I followed — half a step behind, exactly where you walk when you are trying to protect someone without stealing their feet.
notes26-01-27e1¶
To Emily for Analysis¶
✨ Part 1 - The Car ✨
I saw her before she saw me.
Wardrobe’s side door opened with its usual hush, and Charli stepped out like she’d been trained to move through a room without breaking anything delicate. Tote on her shoulder, hair brushed back and tied in a ponytail, but a little higher on the back of her head than before. She wore a cardigan that had no business looking that good on a kid who used to live in hoodies... and disappear.
A week ago I would have called it improvement. Today, it looked like evidence.
She didn’t spot me at first. She paused on the step and glanced down the street, blinking against the sun, and for half a second my mind did what it had always done: That’s my son. That’s my boy. That’s— But the thought landed wrong. As in: factually incorrect. It was like trying to fit a lid onto a container that suddenly too small for what was inside.
Her eyes found mine.
She froze, just a fraction—like a cat checking whether the world is safe—then she walked slowly towards the car. Not with relief or comfort, but a kind of braced surrender.
I’m here. You can undo me.
I swallowed, hard, concentrating to keep my face calm. I was the adult.
She opened the passenger door and slid in, careful of her knees, careful of her tote, careful of everything.
“Seatbelt,” I said, because I needed one thing I could do correctly right now. She clicked it in. Her hands stayed on the strap for a moment, as if holding it gave her support.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. “Physically.”
She stared at the dashboard. “Fine.” Her voice was expressionless.
“Fine fine, or fine like you’re trying to keep me from looking too closely?”
A tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth. A ghost of humour that didn’t quite make it to the surface.
“I'm fine,” she insisted, and this time it sounded more meaningful. I pulled out of the carpark. The midday light was harsh and searching, turning the windscreen into a bright sheet that showed every smudge. The road in front of me felt like a corridor.
“Any dizziness?” I asked. “Headaches. Heart racing. Nausea.”
“No.”
“Okay,” I said, and my fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “You tell me if that changes.”
She nodded, small.
The silence filled itself quickly, the way it always did when there was something both of us knew and neither of us wanted to say first.
I was the mother. That was my job. But lately the job had started to feel like learning a new language with a mouth full of stones.
“We’re going to the doctor,” I said, as if it needed stating. As if naming it made it manageable. “We’re going to do this properly.”
Her shoulders rose, then fell. She didn’t argue. She didn’t push back. That was new. Or maybe it wasn’t new. Maybe it was what I’d missed. The way she had learned to become compliant when she didn’t know what else to be.
I felt heat behind my eyes and forced it down.
“What do you want me to tell them?” she asked suddenly, voice small. I glanced at her.
“Tell them the truth.”
Her fingers twisted in her lap. “What if the truth—”
“We’re not going to borrow trouble,” I said, too quickly. I softened it on the second breath. “We tell them: you’ve been taking something you shouldn’t have been taking alone. We tell them you stopped. We tell them you’re frightened. We ask for bloodwork, baselines, and a plan.”
A plan. A list. Numbers. Things I could hold. She nodded. Then she asked, barely audible:
“Are you... cross with me?”
I nearly choked. Under the words was something bare and terrified: Am I about to lose you? I tightened my grip on the wheel, eyes on the road.
“I’m not cross with you for wanting… things to stop hurting,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road. “I am cross about the secrecy. And—” I swallowed. “I’m cross that you thought you had to do it on your own. It hurts that you’ve been so alone.”
Her throat bobbed. I hadn’t meant to say “alone”. It came out anyway, like truth does when it’s been waiting too long.
We drove another block. The world outside went on being ordinary: a dog in a yard, a cyclist, a woman carrying groceries. The cruelty of normality made my jaw ache. I could ask her the big question. The one my friends would ask. The one the internet would ask. The one that sounded like it would solve everything if she just answered it correctly:
Do you want to be my daughter or my son?
But I didn’t because it wouldn't. Not yet. Because that wasn’t what she needed to answer. What she needed was to not be pushed, so I asked a question that mattered but that she could easily answer.
“How do you feel when someone calls you ‘sir,’?” I asked gently, “what does it do?”
Her fingers stilled.
“It...” She licked her lips. “It makes me feel... sick.”
“Sick. Sick how.”
She turned her head slightly, staring at the wheel, as if she didn’t want to look directly at the words.
“It's like... my stomach drops,” she whispered. “Like—” She closed her eyes, her jaw set. “Like I’m being shoved.”
I inhaled slowly. “Shoved.”
“Yeah, shoved. Shoved somewhere I don’t want to go.” She spoke then with a sudden sharpness that startled me: “Somewhere I can never come back from.”
There it was. Past the point of no return. The cliff edge. I kept my face steady, but inside something twisted. Grief, yes, but even more: fear. And a kind of fury, a rage at myself that I didn’t even know where to put. The road in front of us seemed endless. I exhaled, slowly.
“I won’t call you that,” I said softly. “Not ever.”
She looked at me then, blinking rapidly. “Mum—”
“No,” I said, and I made it gentle. “That much is easy. I can do that today.”
Her shoulders dropped a fraction, a miniscule release. The tiniest sliver of relief. I fretted over how to ask the next important question. Finally:
“What do you want me to call you?” I just blurted it out. I hoped it didn't sound like an accusation.
She stared at her lap.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Charli’s... fine.”
Charli’s fine.
Fine the way “fine” had been fine. A workable answer. A handhold.
“Okay,” I said. “Charli.”
She breathed out as if she’d been holding it.
We came to a red light. I watched her in the corner of my eye: hair slightly mussed from having pins in it all day, pale skin, hands too careful. She looked young, suddenly. Not the awkward child I’d spent years worrying about, not the fragile boy I’d tried to protect from a world that chewed boys up.
That son. My son.
The word rose, hot and automatic. I swallowed it. It still hurt. I didn’t know how to let it go.
I just knew I couldn’t put it on her.
“You don’t have to know today,” I said. “The doctor doesn’t need a philosophy. They need the facts.”
She closed her eyes again and nodded.
“And you,” I added, because it mattered, “don’t have to earn care by having perfect language.”
That made her look up at me. Her eyes were bright. Not tears yet. But close. I didn’t reach over. I didn’t touch her. I didn’t make it about me.
I drove.
Notes26-01-27e2¶
Part 2
When we came out again, the sun looked different. Not softer exactly. Just... less hostile.
Charli’s cheeks were pink: the faint flush of someone who’s been spoken to like a person and is trying to decide whether to believe it actually happened. She held a folded paper in her hand, gripping it almost too tightly.
“What’s that?” I asked as we walked to the car.
“Pathology form,” she said, voice flat with nerves. “Bloods.”
“Good.” I said “good” the way “good” should have been said last night. Confidently. Like, we've got this. We got into the car and she buckled in. I started the engine. The air conditioner hummed. Life resumed its mundane rhythm. I waited one full block before I said anything.
“How was it?”
She swallowed.
“They didn’t...” Her voice cracked on the first word. She tried again. “Well, they didn’t yell. They didn’t... look at me like I was—”
“Like you were stupid?”
She nodded.
“They just asked questions,” she said with a slight shrug. “Like, normal questions.”
“Good.”
“They asked what... dose,” she added, and her fingers tightened on the paper. “And I told them. And they said... they said it was good I stopped on my own, but... not good that I was doing it at all without... you know.”
“Supervision.”
She nodded again.
A beat.
“And then,” she said quietly, “they asked what I wanted.”
My throat tightened.
“What did you say?”
Charli stared out the window at a row of trees that didn’t deserve to be so calm.
“That, um, I didn’t know,” she admitted. “I told them that... I don’t want to be called 'sir'.”
That was all. Just that. And the fact that it was enough made something in me ache.
“And what did they say?”
“They told me,” Charli whispered, “that it was useful information.”
Useful. Not weird or dramatic. Not attention-seeking.
Useful.
My grip on the steering wheel tightened.
“That’s a good doctor,” I said. My relief was palpable.
Charli nodded, tiny.
“They said... they want to check potassium,” she added, stumbling over the word like it didn’t belong in her mouth. “And kidneys. And... hormones. They said you have to get a baseline, or something like that.”
“Right,” I said, and the competence in it steadied me. “That is exactly what we need.”
She shifted in her seat, then said in a rush, as if she was afraid she’d lose nerve:
“They also told me I didn’t have to... decide... today.”
I glanced at her. “No.”
“They said...” She frowned, searching for the sentence. “They said it can be... step-by-step.”
Step-by-step. A ladder instead of a cliff. I felt my eyes burn and looked away quickly, checking a mirror that didn’t need checking.
“Good.” My voice sounded rough. Charli’s gaze slid toward me, cautious.
“Mum?”
“Yes.”
She hesitated.
“Are you... disappointed?”
The question landed like a punch. This was the part I hated most: that my feelings had become something she had to manage. I exhaled slowly.
“Frankly, I’m scared,” I admitted. “I am allowed to be scared. But no, I’m not disappointed in you.”
Her shoulders loosened—one notch, like a belt.
“I keep thinking,” she whispered, “that I’m going to ruin everything.”
“What... everything?”
“The girls,” she said. “The room. Wardrobe. You. Celeste. I...” Her mouth trembled. “If I start looking—”
“Don’t,” I said, too sharp, hating my tone, my voice, my instincts. My desperate need for... conventional.
She flinched.
I fought the old pronoun as it pressed against my teeth. He. My son. My boy.
I bit it back. I corrected myself. Softer. Precise.
“Let's not borrow that future,” I said, as much to myself as to her. “Not today.”
She swallowed hard.
“But for me, it was happening, mum,” she said clearly, a new anguish in her voice. “It was starting. The... horrible feeling.”
“What did the doctor say about that feeling?”
Charli blinked rapidly. “They said... it matters. They said—” She swallowed. “They said we shouldn’t ignore it.”
I nodded, and in that nod I felt something changing, a new recognition of this child of mine. This wasn't acceptance as a banner or an ideology, but something simpler: a willingness to let the facts lead.
Charli was in pain.
Charli had found relief.
Charli needed supervision.
Charli deserved dignity.
Those were the facts: they were my rails.
I could run on those rails while the rest of me caught up.
We drove for a minute in silence. Then Charli said, so quietly I almost missed it:
“Do you... hate the word?”
“The word.”
“Daughter,” she whispered.
My chest tightened. Honest question. No trap, just fear. I kept my eyes on the road.
“I don’t hate it,” I said. And then I forced myself to go further—because she deserved truth, not comfort theatre. “It’s... new in my mouth.”
She looked down. I added, carefully:
“But I can learn.”
Her breath hitched.
I didn’t say I always wanted a daughter. That would have been a lie. And the lie would have been poison. I didn’t say you were always meant to be this. That would have been a story I used to make myself feel wise. I said the only thing I could stand on.
“I can learn,” I repeated. “And I’m here.”
Charli turned her face toward the window. I saw her wipe at her cheek quickly, like she was embarrassed by the fact that feeling still leaked out of her.
“Okay,” she whispered.
And the 'okay' this time sounded like trust. Not huge or permanent. But real.
As we approached the turnoff back toward the apartment, my mind flicked to Celeste: the way she’d held last night, so disciplined and much too young to be that contained, composed, collected. The way her perturbation had been visible even while she was trying to keep the effort hidden.
Two women. Two kinds of authority.
A rivalry could have existed, certainly, but there was no room for that kind of story. Today there was only my child in the passenger seat, holding a pathology form like it was a map out of the dark.
I signalled left.
“We’ll get those bloods done now,” I said. “Then we’ll get you home. Food. Water. Quiet.”
Charli nodded, and for the first time in days, the nod didn’t look like surrender.
It looked like choice.
notes26-01-27e3¶
To Emily: Final Polish¶
✨ The Car ✨
I was going to give you the final bit, but it had a lot of redundancies, so I've eliminated it. Here's the whole scene:
I saw her before she saw me.
Wardrobe’s side door opened with its usual hush, and Charli stepped out like she’d been trained to move through a room without breaking anything delicate. Tote on her shoulder, hair brushed back and tied in a ponytail, but a little higher on the back of her head than before. She wore a cardigan that had no business looking that good on a kid who used to live in hoodies... and disappear.
A week ago I would have called it improvement. Today, it looked like evidence.
She didn’t spot me at first. She paused on the step and glanced down the street, blinking against the sun, and for half a second my mind did what it had always done: That’s my son. That’s my boy. That’s— But the thought landed wrong. As in: factually incorrect. It was like trying to fit a lid onto a container that suddenly too small for what was inside.
Her eyes found mine.
She froze, just a fraction—like a cat checking whether the world is safe—then she walked slowly towards the car. Not with relief or comfort, but a kind of braced surrender.
I’m here. You can undo me.
I swallowed, hard, concentrating to keep my face calm. I was the adult.
She opened the passenger door and slid in, careful of her knees, careful of her tote, as if the car itself might judge her.
“Seatbelt,” I said, because I needed one thing I could do correctly right now. She clicked it in. Her hands stayed on the strap for a moment, as if holding it gave her support.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. “Physically.”
She stared at the dashboard. “Fine.” Her voice was expressionless.
“Fine-fine, or fine because you don’t want me looking?”
A tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth. A ghost of humour that didn’t quite make it to the surface.
“I'm fine,” she insisted, and this time it sounded more meaningful. I pulled out of the carpark. The midday light was harsh and searching, turning the windscreen into a bright sheet that showed every smudge. The road in front of me felt like a corridor.
“Any dizziness?” I asked. “Headaches. Heart racing. Nausea.”
“No.”
“Okay,” I said, and my fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “You tell me if that changes.”
She nodded, small.
The silence filled itself quickly, the way it always did when there was something both of us knew and neither of us wanted to say first.
I was the mother. That was my job. But lately the job had started to feel like learning a new language with a mouth full of stones.
“We’re going to the doctor,” I said, as if it needed stating. As if naming it made it manageable. “We’re going to do this properly.”
Her shoulders rose, then fell. She didn’t argue. She didn’t push back. That was new. Or maybe it wasn’t new. Maybe it was what I’d missed. The way she had learned to become compliant when she didn’t know what else to be.
I felt heat behind my eyes and forced it down.
“What do you want me to tell them?” she asked suddenly, voice small. I glanced at her.
“Tell them the truth.”
Her fingers twisted in her lap. “What if the truth—”
“We’re not going to borrow trouble,” I said, too quickly. I softened it on the second breath. “We tell them: you’ve been taking something you shouldn’t have been taking alone. We tell them you stopped. We tell them you’re frightened. We ask for bloodwork, baselines, and a plan.”
A plan. A list. Numbers. Things I could hold. She nodded. Then she asked, barely audible:
“Are you... cross with me?”
I nearly choked. Under the words was something bare and terrified: Am I about to lose you? I tightened my grip on the wheel, eyes on the road.
“I’m not cross with you for wanting… things to stop hurting,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road. “I am cross about the secrecy. And—” I swallowed. “I’m cross that you thought you had to do it on your own. It hurts that you’ve been so alone.”
Her throat bobbed. I hadn’t meant to say “alone”. It came out anyway, like truth does when it’s been waiting too long.
We drove another block. The world outside went on being ordinary: a dog in a yard, a cyclist, a woman carrying groceries. The cruelty of normality made my jaw ache. I could ask her the big question. The one my friends would ask. The one the internet would ask. The one that sounded like it would solve everything if she just answered it correctly:
Do you want to be my daughter or my son?
But I didn’t because it wouldn't. Not yet. Because that wasn’t what she needed to answer. What she needed was to not be pushed, so I asked a question that mattered but that she could easily answer.
“How do you feel when someone calls you ‘sir’?” I asked gently. “What does it do?”
Her fingers stilled.
“It...” She licked her lips. “It makes me feel... sick.”
“Sick. Sick how.”
She turned her head slightly, staring at the wheel, as if she didn’t want to look directly at the words.
“It's like... my stomach drops,” she whispered. “Like—” She closed her eyes, her jaw set. “Like I’m being shoved.”
I inhaled slowly. “Shoved.”
“Yeah, shoved. Shoved somewhere I don’t want to go.” She spoke then with a sudden sharpness that startled me: “Somewhere I can never come back from.”
There it was. Past the point of no return. The cliff edge. I kept my face steady, but inside something twisted. Grief, yes, but even more: fear. And a kind of fury, a rage at myself that I didn’t even know where to put. The road in front of us seemed endless. I exhaled, slowly.
“I won’t call you that,” I said softly. “Not ever.”
She looked at me then, blinking rapidly. “Mum—”
“No,” I said, and I made it gentle. “That much is easy. I can do that today.”
Her shoulders dropped a fraction, a miniscule release. The tiniest sliver of relief. I fretted over how to ask the next important question. Finally:
“What do you want me to call you?” I just blurted it out. I hoped it didn't sound like an accusation.
She stared at her lap.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Charli’s... fine.”
Charli’s fine.
Fine the way “fine” had been fine. A workable answer. A handhold.
“Okay,” I said. “Charli.”
She breathed out as if she’d been holding it.
We came to a red light. I watched her in the corner of my eye: hair slightly mussed from having pins in it all day, pale skin, hands too careful. She looked young, suddenly. Not the awkward child I’d spent years worrying about, not the fragile boy I’d tried to protect from a world that punished softness.
My son.
The word rose, hot and automatic. I swallowed it. It still hurt. I didn’t know how to let it go.
I just knew I couldn’t put it on her.
“You don’t have to know today,” I said. “The doctor doesn’t need a philosophy. They need the facts.”
She closed her eyes again and nodded.
“And you,” I added, because it mattered, “don’t have to earn care by having perfect language.”
That made her look up at me. Her eyes were bright—not tears yet, but close. My hand twitched on the wheel, wanting to reach for her. I didn’t. I kept both hands where they were. I didn’t touch her.
I didn’t make it about me.
I drove.
The clinic carpark was crowded. I found a spot and turned the engine off. The sudden silence made everything feel louder. Charli’s hand hovered over the door handle.
“What if they make it... weird,” she whispered.
“They won’t,” I said, and I meant it the way you mean a promise you haven’t fully tested. “And if they do, we leave. We can change doctors. We’re not begging anyone for your dignity.”
She stared at me, speechless, like she’d never imagined dignity was something you could refuse to negotiate.
I held her gaze.
“You’re not a problem to be solved,” I said. “You’re my... kid. We’re getting you looked after.”
Her mouth trembled. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I echoed.
We got out.
I walked beside her, close enough that my shoulder could catch hers if she faltered, far enough that she wasn’t being steered like a shopping trolley. At the door she hesitated. I put my hand on the small of her back—brief, light, not a shove. A signal.
I'm here. With you. Not over you.
She went in.
When we came out again, the sun looked different. Not softer exactly. Just... less hostile.
Charli’s cheeks were pink: the faint flush of someone who’s been spoken to like a person and is trying to decide whether to believe it actually happened. She held a folded paper in her hand, gripping it almost too tightly.
“What’s that?” I asked as we walked to the car.
“Pathology form,” she said, voice flat with nerves. “Bloods.”
“Good.” I tried to say it the way I should have last night—steady. We’ve got this. We got into the car and she buckled in. I started the engine. The air conditioner hummed. Life resumed its mundane rhythm. I waited a full block before I spoke.
“How was it?”
She swallowed.
“They didn’t...” Her voice cracked. She tried again. “They didn’t yell. They didn’t… look at me like I was—”
“Like you were stupid?”
She nodded.
“They just asked questions,” she said with a slight shrug. “Like, normal questions.”
“Good.”
“They asked what... dose,” she added, and her fingers tightened on the paper. “And I told them. And they said... they said it was good I stopped on my own, but... not good that I was doing it at all without... you know.”
“Supervision.”
She nodded again.
The indicator ticked.
“And then,” she said quietly, “they asked what I wanted.”
My throat tightened.
“What did you say?”
Charli stared out the window at a row of trees that didn’t deserve to be so calm.
“That, um, I didn’t know,” she admitted. “I told them that... I don’t want to be called 'sir'.”
That was all. Just that. And the fact that it was enough made something in me ache.
“And what did they say?”
“They told me,” Charli whispered, “that it was useful information.”
Useful. Not weird or dramatic. Not attention-seeking.
Useful.
My grip on the steering wheel tightened.
“That’s a good doctor,” I said. My relief was palpable.
Charli nodded, tiny.
“They said... they want to check potassium,” she added, stumbling over the word as if it belonged to someone else. “And kidneys. And... hormones. They said you have to get a baseline, or something like that.”
“Right,” I said, and the competence in it steadied me. “That is exactly what we need.”
She shifted in her seat, then said in a rush, as if she was afraid she’d lose nerve:
“They also told me I didn’t have to... decide... today.”
I glanced at her. “No.”
“They said...” She frowned, searching for the sentence. “They said it can be... step-by-step.”
Step-by-step. A ladder instead of a cliff. I felt my eyes burn and looked away quickly, checking a mirror that didn’t need checking.
“Good.” My voice sounded rough. Charli’s gaze slid toward me, cautious.
“Mum?”
“Yes.”
She hesitated.
“Are you... disappointed?”
The question landed like a punch. This was the part I hated most: that my feelings had become something she had to manage. I exhaled slowly.
“Frankly, I’m scared,” I admitted. “I am allowed to be scared. But no, I’m not disappointed in you.”
Her shoulders loosened: one notch, like a belt slipping to the next hole.
“I keep thinking,” she whispered, “that I’m going to ruin everything.”
“What... everything?”
“The girls,” she said. “The room. Wardrobe. You. Celeste. I...” Her mouth trembled. “If I start looking—”
“Don’t,” I said, too sharp, hating my tone, my voice, my instincts. My desperate need for... simple.
She flinched.
The old pronoun pressed against my teeth. He. My son. My boy.
I bit it back. I corrected myself. Softer. Precise.
“Let's not borrow that future,” I said, as much to myself as to her. “Not today.”
She swallowed hard.
“But for me, it was happening, mum,” she said clearly, a new anguish in her voice. “It was starting. The... horrible feeling.”
“What did the doctor say about that feeling?”
Charli blinked rapidly. “They said... it matters. They said—” She swallowed. “They said we shouldn’t ignore it.”
I nodded, and in that nod I felt something changing, a new recognition of this child of mine. This wasn't acceptance as a banner or an ideology, but something simpler: a willingness to let the facts lead.
Charli was in pain.
Charli had found relief.
Charli deserved dignity.
Those were the facts: they were my rails.
I could run on those rails while the rest of me caught up.
We drove for a minute in silence. Then Charli said, so quietly I almost missed it:
“Do you... hate the word?”
“The word.”
“Daughter,” she whispered.
My chest tightened. Honest question. No trap, just fear. I kept my eyes on the road.
“I don’t hate it,” I said. And then I forced myself to go further—because she deserved truth, not comfort theatre. “It’s... new in my mouth.”
She looked down. I added, carefully:
“But I can learn.”
Her breath hitched.
I didn’t say I always wanted a daughter. That would have been a lie. And the lie would have been poison. I didn’t say you were always meant to be this. That would have been a story I used to make myself feel wise. I said the only thing I could stand on.
“I can learn,” I repeated. “And I’m here.”
Charli turned her face toward the window. I saw her wipe at her cheek quickly, like she was embarrassed by the fact that feeling still leaked out of her.
“Okay,” she whispered.
And the 'okay' this time sounded like trust. Not huge or permanent. But real.
As we approached the turnoff back toward the apartment, my mind flicked to Celeste: the way she’d held last night, so disciplined and much too young to be that contained, composed, collected. The way her perturbation had been visible even while she was trying to keep the effort hidden.
Two women. Two kinds of authority. No room for rivalry today: only my child beside me, gripping a pathology form like a map out of the dark.
I signalled left.
“We’ll get those bloods done now,” I said. “Then we’ll get you home. Food. Water. Quiet.”
Charli nodded, and for the first time in days, the nod didn’t look like surrender.
It looked like choice.
Scene 32¶
The Car¶
Scene 32 — “The Car” (Lauren POV, past tense)
✨ The Car ✨
[Lauren]
I saw her before she saw me.
Wardrobe’s side door opened with its usual hush, and Charli stepped out like she’d been trained to move through a room without breaking anything delicate. Tote on her shoulder, hair brushed back and tied in a ponytail, but a little higher on the back of her head than before. She wore a cardigan that had no business looking that good on a kid who used to live in hoodies... and disappear.
A week ago I would have called it improvement. Today, it looked like evidence.
She didn’t spot me at first. She paused on the step and glanced down the street, blinking against the sun, and for half a second my mind did what it had always done: That’s my son. That’s my boy. That’s— But the thought landed wrong. As in: factually incorrect. It was like trying to fit a lid onto a container that was suddenly too small for what was inside.
Her eyes found mine.
She froze, just a fraction—like a cat checking whether the world is safe—then she walked slowly towards the car. Not with relief or comfort, but a kind of braced surrender. Like: "I’m here. You can undo me."
I swallowed, hard, concentrating to keep my face calm. I was the adult.
She opened the passenger door and slid in, careful of her knees, careful of her tote, as if the car itself might judge her.
“Seatbelt,” I said, because I needed one thing I could do correctly right now. She clicked it in. Her hands stayed on the strap for a moment, as if holding it gave her support.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. “Physically.”
She stared at the dashboard. “Fine.” Her voice was expressionless.
“Fine-fine, or fine because you don’t want me looking?”
A tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth. A ghost of humour that didn’t quite make it to the surface.
“I'm fine,” she insisted, and this time it sounded more meaningful. I pulled out of the carpark. The midday light was harsh and searching, turning the windscreen into a bright sheet that showed every smudge. The road in front of me felt like a corridor.
“Any dizziness?” I asked. “Headaches. Heart racing. Nausea.”
“No.”
“Okay,” I said, and my fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “You tell me if that changes.”
She nodded, small.
The silence filled itself quickly, the way it always did when there was something both of us knew and neither of us wanted to say first.
I was the mother. That was my job. But lately the job had started to feel like learning a new language with a mouth full of stones.
“We’re going to the doctor,” I said, as if it needed stating. As if naming it made it manageable. “We’re going to do this properly.”
Her shoulders rose, then fell. She didn’t argue. She didn’t push back. That was new. Or maybe it wasn’t new. Maybe it was what I’d missed. The way she had learned to become compliant when she didn’t know what else to be.
I felt heat behind my eyes and forced it down.
“What do you want me to tell them?” she asked suddenly, voice small. I glanced at her.
“Tell them the truth.”
Her fingers twisted in her lap. “What if the truth—”
“We’re not going to borrow trouble,” I said, too quickly. I softened it on the second breath. “We tell them: you’ve been taking something you shouldn’t have been taking alone. We tell them you stopped. We tell them you’re frightened. We ask for bloodwork, baselines, and a plan.”
A plan. A list. Numbers. Things I could hold. She nodded. Then she asked, barely audible:
“Are you... cross with me?”
I nearly choked. Under the words was something bare and terrified: Am I about to lose you? I tightened my grip on the wheel, eyes on the road.
“I’m not cross with you for wanting… things to stop hurting,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road. “I am cross about the secrecy. And—” I swallowed. “I’m cross that you thought you had to do it on your own. It hurts that you’ve been so alone.”
Her throat bobbed. I hadn’t meant to say “alone”. It came out anyway, like truth does when it’s been waiting too long.
We drove another block. The world outside went on being ordinary: a dog in a yard, a cyclist, a woman carrying groceries. The cruelty of normality made my jaw ache. I could ask her the big question. The one my friends would ask. The one the internet would ask. The one that sounded like it would solve everything if she just answered it correctly:
Do you want to be my daughter or my son?
But I didn’t because it wouldn't. Not yet. Because that wasn’t what she needed to answer. What she needed was to not be pushed, so I asked a question that mattered but that she could easily answer.
“How do you feel when someone calls you ‘sir’?” I asked gently. “What does it do?”
Her fingers stilled.
“It...” She licked her lips. “It makes me feel... sick.”
“Sick in what way?”
She turned her head slightly, staring at the wheel, as if she didn’t want to look directly at the words.
“It's like... my stomach drops,” she whispered. “Like—” She closed her eyes, her jaw set. “Like I’m being shoved.”
I inhaled slowly. “Shoved.”
“Yeah, shoved. Shoved somewhere I don’t want to go.” She spoke then with a sudden sharpness that startled me: “Somewhere I can never come back from.”
There it was. Past the point of no return. The cliff edge. I kept my face steady, but inside something twisted. Grief, yes, but even more: fear. And a kind of fury, a rage at myself that I didn’t even know where to put. The road in front of us seemed endless. I exhaled, slowly.
“I won’t call you that,” I said softly. “Not ever.”
She looked at me then, blinking rapidly. “Mum—”
“No,” I said, and I made it gentle. “That much is easy. I can do that today.”
Her shoulders dropped a fraction, a miniscule release. The tiniest sliver of relief. I fretted over how to ask the next important question. Finally:
“What do you want me to call you?” I just blurted it out. I hoped it didn't sound like an accusation.
She stared at her lap.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Charli’s... fine.”
Charli’s fine.
Fine the way “fine” had been fine. A workable answer. A handhold.
“Okay,” I said. “Charli.”
She breathed out as if she’d been holding it.
We came to a red light. I watched her in the corner of my eye: hair slightly mussed from having pins in it all day, pale skin, hands too careful. She looked young, suddenly. Not the awkward child I’d spent years worrying about, not the fragile boy I’d tried to protect from a world that punished softness.
My son.
The word rose, hot and automatic. I swallowed it. It still hurt. I didn’t know how to let it go.
I just knew I couldn’t put it on her.
“You don’t have to know today,” I said. “The doctor doesn’t need a philosophy. They need the facts.”
She closed her eyes again and nodded.
“And you,” I added, because it mattered, “don’t have to earn care by having perfect language.”
That made her look up at me. Her eyes were bright—not tears yet, but close. My hand twitched on the wheel, wanting to reach for her. I didn’t. I kept both hands where they were. I didn’t touch her.
I didn’t make it about me.
I kept driving.
The clinic carpark was crowded. I found a spot and turned the engine off. The sudden silence made everything feel louder. Charli’s hand hovered over the door handle.
“What if they make it... weird,” she whispered.
“They won’t,” I said, and I meant it the way you mean a promise you haven’t fully tested. “And if they do, we leave. We can change doctors. We’re not begging anyone for your dignity.”
She stared at me, speechless, like she’d never imagined dignity was something you could refuse to negotiate.
I held her gaze.
“You’re not a problem to be solved,” I said. “You’re my... kid. We’re getting you looked after.”
Her mouth trembled. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I echoed.
We got out.
I walked beside her, close enough that my shoulder could catch hers if she faltered, far enough that she wasn’t being steered like a shopping trolley. At the door she hesitated. I put my hand on the small of her back—brief, light, not a shove. A signal.
I'm here. With you. Not over you.
She went in.
When we came out again, the sun looked different. Not softer exactly. Just... less hostile.
Charli’s cheeks were pink: the faint flush of someone who’s been spoken to like a person and is trying to decide whether to believe it actually happened. She held a folded paper in her hand, gripping it almost too tightly.
“What’s that?” I asked as we walked to the car.
“Pathology form,” she said, voice flat with nerves. “Bloods.”
“Good.” I tried to say it the way I should have last night—steady. We’ve got this. We got into the car and she buckled in. I started the engine. The air conditioner hummed. Life resumed its mundane rhythm. I waited a full block before I spoke.
“How was it?”
She swallowed.
“They didn’t...” Her voice cracked. She tried again. “They didn’t yell. They didn’t… look at me like I was—”
“Like you were stupid?”
She nodded.
“They just asked questions,” she said with a slight shrug. “Like, normal questions.”
“Good.”
“They asked what... dose,” she added, and her fingers tightened on the paper. “And I told them. And they said... they said it was good I stopped on my own, but... not good that I was doing it at all without... you know.”
“Supervision.”
She nodded again.
The indicator ticked.
“And then,” she said quietly, “they asked what I wanted.”
My throat tightened.
“What did you say?”
Charli stared out the window at a row of trees that didn’t deserve to be so calm.
“That, um, I didn’t know,” she admitted. “I told them that... I don’t want to be called 'sir'.”
That was all. Just that. And the fact that it was enough made something in me ache.
“And what did they say?”
“They told me,” Charli whispered, “that it was useful information.”
Useful. Not weird or dramatic. Not attention-seeking.
Useful.
My grip on the steering wheel tightened.
“That’s a good doctor,” I said. My relief was palpable.
Charli nodded, tiny.
“They said... they want to check potassium,” she added, stumbling over the word as if it belonged to someone else. “And kidneys. And... hormones. They said you have to get a baseline, or something like that.”
“Right,” I said, and the competence in it steadied me. “That is exactly what we need.”
She shifted in her seat, then said in a rush, as if she was afraid she’d lose nerve:
“They also told me I didn’t have to... decide... today.”
I glanced at her. “No.”
“They said...” She frowned, searching for the sentence. “They said it can be... step-by-step.”
Step-by-step. A ladder instead of a cliff. I felt my eyes burn and looked away quickly, checking a mirror that didn’t need checking.
“Good.” My voice sounded rough. Charli’s gaze slid toward me, cautious.
“Mum?”
“Yes.”
She hesitated.
“Are you... disappointed?”
The question landed like a punch. This was the part I hated most: that my feelings had become something she had to manage. I exhaled slowly.
“Frankly, I’m scared,” I admitted. “I am allowed to be scared. But no, I’m not disappointed in you.”
Her shoulders loosened: one notch, like a belt slipping to the next hole.
“I keep thinking,” she whispered, “that I’m going to ruin everything.”
“What... everything?”
“The girls,” she said. “The room. Wardrobe. You. Celeste. I...” Her mouth trembled. “If I start looking—”
“Don’t,” I said, too sharp, hating my tone, my voice, my instincts. My desperate need for... simple.
She flinched.
The old pronoun pressed against my teeth. He. My son. My boy.
I bit it back. I corrected myself. Softer. Precise.
“Let’s not borrow that future,” I said, as much to myself as to her. “Not today.”
She swallowed hard.
“But for me, it was happening, mum,” she said clearly, a new anguish in her voice. “It was starting. The... horrible feeling.”
“What did the doctor say about that feeling?”
Charli blinked rapidly. “They said... it matters. They said—” She swallowed. “They said we shouldn’t ignore it.”
I nodded, and in that nod I felt something changing, a new recognition of this child of mine. This wasn't acceptance as a banner or an ideology, but something simpler: a willingness to let the facts lead.
Charli was in pain.
Charli had found relief.
Charli deserved dignity.
Those were the facts: they were my rails.
I could run on those rails while the rest of me caught up.
We drove for a minute in silence. Then Charli said, so quietly I almost missed it:
“Do you... hate the word?”
“The word.”
“Daughter,” she whispered.
My chest tightened. Honest question. No trap, just fear. I kept my eyes on the road.
“I don’t hate it,” I said. And then I forced myself to go further—because she deserved truth, not comfort theatre. “It’s... new in my mouth.”
She looked down. I added, carefully:
“But I can learn.”
Her breath hitched.
I didn’t say I always wanted a daughter. That would have been a lie. And the lie would have been poison. I didn’t say you were always meant to be this. That would have been a story I used to make myself feel wise. I said the only thing I could stand on.
“I can learn,” I repeated. “And I’m here.”
Charli turned her face toward the window. I saw her wipe at her cheek quickly, like she was embarrassed by the fact that feeling still leaked out of her.
“Okay,” she whispered.
And the 'okay' this time sounded like trust. Not huge or permanent. But real.
As we approached the turnoff back toward the apartment, my mind flicked to Celeste: the way she’d held last night, so disciplined and much too young to be that contained, composed, collected. The way her perturbation had been visible even while she was trying to keep the effort hidden.
Two women. Two kinds of authority. No room for rivalry today: only my child beside me, gripping a pathology form like a map out of the dark.
I signalled left.
“We’ll get those bloods done now,” I said. “Then we’ll get you home. Food. Water. Quiet.”
Charli nodded, and for the first time in days, the nod didn’t look like surrender.
It looked like choice.