The car pulls into the driveway, and I freeze at the sight of Caleb's truck already there. That stupid red F-150 with the dent in the passenger door from when he'd backed into a tree sophomore year. *Not now. Why does it have to be now?* A set of thoughts rush through my head about not knowing what to expect. I remember my brother being real masculine and I had always wanted to be like him. *Wanted to be like him. Not be him. There's a difference I didn't understand back then.* And my heart beats faster. I knew I was going to have to see him eventually but so soon?!
I stall with my hand on the door, stomach tight, only moving when Mom gently urges, "He's looking forward to seeing you." Her voice sounds hopeful.
Inside, the air feels thick. Caleb stands near the couch, taller and older than I remembered. He looks up, pauses, then simply says, "Hey."
I don't respond—just nod and avoid his gaze. My fingers pull at the sleeves of my hoodie, tugging them down over my hands. The living room suddenly feels too small. Too warm. Too everything.
"You hungry?" he asks, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Mom said you were coming home for dinner."
Home
The word sticks in my throat. This isn't exactly home anymore. Not really. And I'm not exactly who I was the last time he saw me.
"Not really," I mumble. The carpet has this one stain from when we spilled grape juice during a movie night three years ago. I focus on that instead of his face.
Caleb shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "Yeah, well. Been a while."
Aunt Clara bustles in from the kitchen, her presence filling the awkward space between us. "Let's all sit down. Food's almost ready."
Aunt Clara is here too!?
I follow her, keeping my eyes down, feeling Caleb's gaze on my back. His footsteps behind me sound exactly the same as they always did. Heavy. Certain. Everything I'm not.
Just get through dinner. Just get through tonight.
I repeat it like a mantra as I slide into my old seat at the table.
Caleb sits across from me, not next to me like he used to. The silence stretches between us like a rubber band ready to snap. Dad's still in the kitchen helping Mom with something. Aunt Clara excuses herself to check on the rolls. Just me and Caleb now.
He clears his throat. "So. This is... permanent?" His eyes flick over my face, my hair, then away.
"What do you mean?" I know exactly what he means.
"This whole..." he gestures vaguely at me, "thing. You being... like this."
I stare at my empty plate. "It's not a 'thing,' Caleb."
"I'm just trying to understand." His voice drops lower. "Like, when did you decide? Was it after I left for college?"
The word 'decide' makes my skin crawl. As if I woke up one morning and checked a different box on some form.
"I didn't decide anything," I say, my voice tight.
"Come on, Eli—" he catches himself. "Ely. You know what I mean. There had to be a moment when you chose this path."
I dig my fingernails into my palm under the table. "I got sick, Caleb. Really sick. The doctors ran tests. That's how we found out."
He leans forward, elbows on the table. "Found out what? That you wanted to be a girl?"
"That I am a girl." The words come out sharper than I intended. "Chromosomally. Biologically. It's not—"
"But you were my brother for fifteen years," he interrupts. "You can't just expect everyone to flip a switch overnight."
"You think this was easy for me? You think I wanted this?"
"I don't know what to think," he says, frustration edging into his voice. "Did you ever think about how this affects everyone else? Mom? Dad? Me?"
That's it. I've had enough.
"I'm done with this conversation." I push my chair back slightly. "You don't get it, and I'm too tired to explain."
"Dinner's ready!" Mom's voice cuts through the tension as she emerges from the kitchen, balancing a steaming casserole dish. Dad follows with a bowl of mashed potatoes, and Aunt Clara returns with a basket of rolls that smell like butter and home.
The timing couldn't be better. Caleb's jaw tightens, but he doesn't say anything else.
We all settle in, passing dishes around in a choreographed routine that feels both familiar and foreign. Mom fills the silence, talking about neighborhood gossip, how Mrs. Henderson's dog got loose again, how the Millers are finally renovating their porch.
"So, Ely," Dad says between bites, "how are your classes going at Aunt Clara's place?"
I shrug, pushing peas around my plate. "Fine. Chemistry's hard."
"She's doing wonderfully," Aunt Clara chimes in, giving me a gentle smile. "Her essay on the Civil War was one of the best in class."
Mom beams at this. "You always were a good writer."
"Remember when Elias wrote that dinosaur story in third grade?" Caleb says suddenly. "The one about the T-Rex who couldn't tie its shoes?"
Mom's smile falters.
"Ely," Dad corrects quietly.
Caleb stabs at his potatoes. "Right. Sorry."
Aunt Clara reaches under the table and squeezes my hand briefly. I catch her eye, and she gives me a tiny nod that says more than words could.
"Caleb, how's the engineering program?" Mom asks, steering the conversation away from me.
He launches into a story about some project involving solar panels, and I feel myself exhale. The attention shifts. I can breathe again. Aunt Clara keeps finding ways to make eye contact with me throughout dinner, subtle reassurances that I'm not alone in this room full of history.
By the time dessert is finished—apple pie that tastes exactly like every Thanksgiving and Christmas of my childhood—I'm exhausted from the effort of existing in this space.
"I think I'll go upstairs for a bit," I announce, standing up.
"I'll clear the table," Mom says. "You go on."
"The adults can chat," Aunt Clara adds with a wink that makes me feel like I'm not part of that category yet, despite everything my body's been through.
I climb the stairs, each step familiar beneath my feet. Second one still creaks. The door to my old room stands closed at the end of the hall.
When I push it open, it's like stepping into a time capsule. Everything is exactly as I left it almost a year ago, preserved like a museum exhibit of who I used to be.
It is exactly how it was almost a year ago. The blue walls. The faded band posters. The desk with the wobbly right leg. The bookshelf crammed with fantasy novels and comic books. Even the laundry basket still has a few old shirts I left behind.
I run my fingers over the dresser, a thin layer of dust coming away on my fingertips. *Mom must have kept this room off-limits for cleaning. Like it's some kind of shrine to the kid she lost.*
The bed is made with the same navy comforter, corners tucked in military-style the way Dad taught me. *Did they think I'd come back? That this would all be some phase I'd grow out of?*
I slide open the top drawer of my desk. Old school notebooks. A broken mechanical pencil. A deck of cards missing the queen of hearts. *Feels like someone else's life. Was this really me?*
In the second drawer, I find my old sketchbook. I'd forgotten about this. Flipping through the pages, I see drawings of superheroes, dragons, landscapes from the camping trip we took when I was twelve. My heart beats a little faster as I turn each page.
*I wasn't half bad. I should start drawing again.*
The excitement builds as I keep digging. At the bottom of the drawer, under a pile of old birthday cards, I find it—my rock collection. Each one labeled in my careful handwriting: "Quartz from Lake Michigan," "Fool's gold from science camp," "Geode from Aunt Clara's trip to Arizona."
"Oh my god," I whisper, actually smiling now as I spread them across the desk. I'd spent entire summers hunting for these, sorting them by type, researching each one online. This tiny piece of my past doesn't hurt to remember. It feels good, like finding a part of myself that hasn't changed.
I'm so absorbed in examining a piece of smoothed green glass I once thought was jade that I don't hear the footsteps in the hallway. The soft knock makes me jump, the "jade" slipping from my fingers and clattering across the desk.
Caleb stands in the doorway, one hand still raised from knocking, the other holding two bottles of root beer. His eyes move from my face to the rocks scattered across the desk.
"Still got those, huh?" he says, his voice quieter than it was at dinner.
I nod, quickly gathering the stones back into a pile. "Yeah."
"Remember that one?" Caleb points to a reddish stone with dark flecks. He steps into the room, offering one of the root beers. "From that creek behind Grandma's place?"
I take the bottle, cold against my palm. "Jasper. You helped me find it."
"You were so excited." He leans against the desk, not sitting but not leaving either. "Kept talking about how it was worth like a million dollars."
"It was worth at least ten," I say, and something shifts in the air between us.
Caleb cracks a smile—small but real. "You were such a nerd about those rocks."
"Still am, I guess." I twist the cap off the root beer, the familiar hiss and sweet smell hitting me. We used to drink these on the back porch in summer.
He picks up the smooth black stone I'd labeled "obsidian" but was probably just river rock. "Remember when we built that volcano for your science fair? Used this as the 'lava rock' evidence?"
"Got an A-minus," I nod. "Would've been an A if we hadn't used so much baking soda it exploded all over Mrs. Peterson."
Caleb laughs, a real laugh that sounds exactly like it used to. "Dad was so mad about the carpet in the car."
"Worth it though."
For a moment, we're just two people remembering the same thing, no awkwardness between us. I slide the sketchbook toward him. "Found this too."
He flips through it, pausing on a drawing I'd done of his truck. "Man, you captured the dent perfectly."
"Had a lot of practice. You were always breaking things."
"Me? What about the time you tried to skateboard off the garage roof?"
"That was your idea!"
"Yeah, but you actually did it." He shakes his head. "Always were braver than you looked."
The compliment catches me off guard. I look down at my root beer, unsure what to say.
Caleb sits on the edge of the bed now, the mattress springs creaking under his weight. He stares at the bottle in his hands, picking at the label with his thumbnail. "Listen, Ely..."
I brace myself, the moment of ease evaporating.
"This whole thing... it's weird for me." His voice drops lower. "I don't... I don't understand it. And I'm trying, but it's like... I had this brother my whole life, and now..."
"I'm still me," I say quietly. "Just... different packaging."
He looks up, his eyes searching my face. "Yeah, that's the thing. When I walked by and saw you with those rocks, for a second it was just like... like old times. Like nothing changed." He takes a long drink of root beer. "And then I remember everything did change, and I feel like I missed something important.
"You didn't miss anything," I say, setting down my bottle. "You were at college. Living your life. That's what you were supposed to be doing."
Caleb runs a hand through his hair. "Yeah, but... I should've been here. For you."
"And done what? Held my hand through blood tests? Watched me cry over hormone prescriptions?" I shake my head. "Not exactly big brother territory."
"I don't know. Something." He looks frustrated. "We used to tell each other everything."
"Not everything," I admit. "I didn't even understand it myself until the doctors explained it. How was I supposed to call you up and say, 'Hey, turns out I've been a girl this whole time'?"
The corner of his mouth twitches. "Would've been a hell of a voicemail."
I snort, surprised by the laugh that escapes me. "Yeah. 'Please call back with any questions.'"
We both chuckle, and something in my chest loosens just a little.
"For what it's worth," Caleb says after a moment, "you seem... I don't know. More comfortable? Like you're not trying so hard anymore."
I blink, surprised by his observation. "I guess I'm not."
He nods, then reaches into his pocket. "Almost forgot. Found this in my truck. Thought you might want it back."
He drops something small into my palm—a green guitar pick with a tiny dinosaur printed on it. I gave it to him years ago, after saving up allowance to buy it from the music store downtown.
"You kept this?" I ask, running my thumb over the worn plastic.
"Course I did. It's from you." He shrugs like it's nothing, but it's everything.
I close my fingers around it, this tiny piece of our history that survived the transformation of everything else.
"I'm not saying I get it," Caleb continues, his voice softer now. "And I'm gonna mess up. Probably a lot. But you're still..." he struggles for the right word, "...you're still my family."
It's not perfect. It's not a Hollywood moment where everything is suddenly fixed. But it's something real—something honest—and for the first time since seeing his truck in the driveway, I feel like I can breathe.
"Thanks," I say, and mean it.
He stands, awkward again but in a different way. "So, um, want to come downstairs? Mom rented that stupid alien movie you used to like."
"It's not stupid," I protest automatically. "It's a classic."
"It's about a blob that eats people's faces."
"Exactly. Classic."
He rolls his eyes, heading for the door. "Whatever. You coming or what?"
I glance around the room one more time—this museum of who I was—and tuck the guitar pick into my pocket.
Yeah, maybe we will be alright.