The next day was more of the same, as was the next. I endured stares and false smiles in the office, then went home and abandoned myself in pursuit of easy sex. I told myself that I was reclaiming my life, but as days turned to weeks, I found myself withdrawing instead. I couldn’t go to the gym for fear of running into Chris and his hurt gaze. The clubs and bars bored me; my conquests felt hollow and meaningless. Even Kat eventually stopped coming around for her little booty calls.
My mood darkened as well. I found myself angry or cranky all the time, with no patience for the social engineering I’d used to fill my days with. I couldn’t keep my face warm long enough to convince everyone around that I was as important as I needed them to believe, and they’d seen that my untrained “sister” could do just as good a job as I could.
And of course, they asked after her constantly. Where had she gone? How was she doing? when would she be visiting again? Why had I never told anyone about her? After a while, I just started locking my office door in the morning.
It was my sixth week as a man – as myself, I kept correcting, my sixth week as myself – I got a message to meet Diana at the cafe. I headed over at noon, ordering my liquid lunch from a dark-haired barista with a bad attitude. She glared at me while she made my coffee, slammed it on the counter, and told me to “have a nice day” in a voice that could have melted paint.
“What a bitch,” I said, sitting across from Diana. Katlyn joined us as about the same time, taking the third seat at what had once been our usual table. I pulled a flask out of my jacket and irished up my coffee while she got comfortable, then realized she and Diana were both staring at me.
“What?” I asked angrily. “Can’t a man have a drink with lunch?
“It’s not that,” Diana said gently. “Well, not just that. It’s…”
“You’re circling the drain,” Katlyn declared.
I glared at her. “What is this, a medical drama?”
Kat held up her hands, palms out. “Socially. Emotionally. Look at yourself. Do you feel like you’re the king of the mountain? Because you sure don’t look it.”
I looked down at myself. My shirt wasn’t ironed, and my tie wasn’t sitting as straight as it should have been. “Whatever. I’m having a bad day.”
“You seem to have had a lot of bad days,” Diana said firmly. “I talked to Debra.”
“Remind me to fire her.”
“Shawn!” Katlyn leaned over and grabbed my arm. “What the hell is wrong with you? You weren’t like this, when-”
“When what? When I was a woman?” I scoffed, pulling away from her grip. “That was never me. That was a prison.”
“Do you feel released?”
Diana touched Katlyn’s hand to shush her. “We talked to Pam, too,” she said. “She said… well, they’re considering replacing you.”
“Good! I’ll quit! Retire even! See America! Fuck a girl in every state! I’ll call it the Shawn Milner Boner Tour!”
“Shawn, stop!” Katlyn grabbed at me again. “Why are you so angry?”
“Why shouldn’t I be? You two don’t like who I am. Everyone in the office wants my goddamn ‘sister’ back. Even the coffee girl fucking hates me for some reason.”
“Coffee girl?” Katlyn leaned over. “The new one”
“Yeah, I guess. Maybe she’s in the wrong line of work.”
“Oh, Shawn,” Kat said, smirking, “that’s… oh jeez.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you see her name tag? It’s right there on her boob, I figured you’d glance at least.”
“I didn’t really care. Why? What’s it say?”
“Tammy.”
I nearly sprayed my drink across the table. “Tammy??” I asked in a hushed voice, glancing back at the counter. “As in Tommy Tammy?”
“Yeah. I guess she’s coping a little worse than you did.”
I snuck a better look over there. It was Tammy all right, dressed in the silly green uniform and apron, slinging coffees and looking generally exhausted. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.” Diana sighed. “I wanted to show you where she ended up just out of interest, but looking at you now… are you sure you’re all right?”
“Apparently not. I thought I’d just slip back into my life, but it’s not…”
“Yeah. It’s not right, for a bunch of reasons.”
“Well, it’s not like I can undo any of it. I did what I had to do… we all did. And I’m still grateful to both of you. But it is what it is. This is who I am, now.”
“Well…” Kat looked over at Tammy. “It doesn’t have to be, you know…”
“You’re shitting me.” I thumped my cup on the table between us. It splashed hot coffee on my hand, but I ignored the pain. “After everything I went through. All that work. Using a good man like that. Ruining the lives of those people who cursed me. Fucking my ex-friend. And now you want me to… to undo it all?”
Kat shrugged. “It was just a thought.”
“Yeah… just a thought…” I shook my head. “Got a few too many of those, lately.”
Diana reached over to lay her hand on mine. “What thought are you having now, Shawn?”
I looked up and met her eyes. The words came out before I had a chance to think about them. Hell, for a second I wasn’t certain it was me talking. But I spoke nonetheless.
“I’ve made a huge mistake.” Read more »