Mom was right. Becoming a cheerleader has improved my approach to people and the way I interact with them. Now, I wasn’t an introvert or anything before my surgery, I had friends and several acquaintances, so that isn’t what I’m talking about. What I mean is I might have been fairly popur whether I was a cheerleader or not since I’m rather cute and I’m generally pretty nice, but being a cheerleader opened my eyes to a whole new world, which I never knew existed outside of hearsay.

  Another reason might be that unlike some, who shall remain nameless, I tend to treat people the way they treat me. I tolerate the nameless one for the sake of the squad but I intensely dislike her. She’s made it patently clear that she hates me and would love nothing more than for me to drop dead. Probably one of the main reasons is that Mom followed through and now funds all the cheerleader activities and of course, she does it without all the provisos that the nameless one’s Mom tried to pce on it.

  Regardless of her, you can sum it up as I’m enjoying my school and life. However, David still gives me strange looks when I wear short shorts, mini skirts, or mini dresses, which honestly I do a lot since I like the styles. Hey, I have long, shapely legs, so I tend to show them off.

  Honestly, my retionship with David has never recovered to what it was before all of this happened. He doesn’t treat me badly or anything like that. He’s simply… well, standoffish, although he defends me at every turn. Some guy in his css said something he probably shouldn’t have about me and David beat him senseless. He refused to tell me what was said, so I can only imagine how bad it was for David to do that.

  David got suspended for a week over it, but he never got in trouble at home. Dad merely patted him on the back and told him, “Good job.” Look, David loves me, I don’t doubt it. The root of this is that he doesn’t like miraculously gaining a sister, so he’s not sure how to deal with it. Give him some time and I’m sure he’ll come to terms with it. It isn’t like it was with me, everything was taken out of my hands and I was left with no choice except to deal with it immediately.

  To give you a clearer idea of what I’m referring to, I’ll rete a conversation he and I had a while back after I came home from a shopping trip with Emma and Kelly.

  No sooner had I got home and unbagged everything in my room so I could put it up than he knocked and called out, “Rei?”

  I look over my shoulder and call out, “Come in.”

  He comes in and takes a seat at my desk while looking at me like I was some strange thing he had no idea how to identify.

  I pause taking tags off a new skirt I bought, give him a small smile, and say, “Hey there. What’s up?”

  “Can you expin what’s happened to you?”

  Now, I have no idea what he means by that since as far as I know, nothing has happened. It was a normal day for me and we had no incidents or anything while we were out. So, I pause for a second, and then hesitantly ask, “Nothing has happened, so what do you mean?”

  He gestures to me. “Just what I said. I’d like you to expin this,” he says while gesturing to me from top to bottom. “You seem to have dived headfirst into this and I don’t recognize you.”

  Oh, it’s this, again. Rolling my eyes, I take a seat on my bed, cross my legs, and look at him for a few moments. I sigh, consider what to say for a few moments, and then shrug. “I’m the same me. I mean I’m the same me that you knew before I went into the hospital. Just like I’m the same me who came back from the hospital as a girl. Nothing about me has changed. I had surgery to correct a fw, and finally, I’m who I should have always been.

  “Or, are you talking about how confident and at ease with who I am?” I pause for a second to see if he wants to say anything. When he doesn’t, I shrug again and continue, “David, I love you, but you need to get past this. I’m not and never was your brother. I’ve always been your sister.”

  “Yeah, I get that. My new sister, who was supposed to be my brother. I can deal with that, you were you, only more feminine in looks.” He gestures to my new clothes on the bed and then to me again. “Now though? Who is this girly girl who everyone says is a hottie? What’s up with that?”

  I smirk. “So, I’m a hottie?”

  He rolls his eyes. “See? This is what I mean. Like every girl out there, you picked out and focused on one small part of what I said.”

  I sigh and shrug again. “What do you want me to say? I’m exactly what you see. A pretty, girly girl, hottie, if what you said is true. I can’t help that I’ve changed and grown beyond what you’re used to seeing, but I’m still me.”

  I pick up the new stockings I bought and walk over to the dresser, open the drawer to put them up. He reaches over and picks up a cute, cy white bra Mom and I bought me, then quirks an eyebrow at me as he says, “Oh, really?” Then points to the stockings in my hand. “And pantyhose, too?”

  I take the bra from him and pce it back in the drawer. Holding up my stockings, I reply, “For your information, these are stockings, not pantyhose.” Putting them up, I pick up a pair of pantyhose and show him. “These are pantyhose. Stockings and pantyhose are different.”

  I shake my head and growl softly in frustration. “David, for the love of God, listen to me for once and get it through that thick skull of yours because I’m tired of telling you over and over. This will be the st time I’m going to expin this.” I gesture to myself from top to bottom. “This is me now, so you need to get used to it, get over it, or what you need to do so you can accept me as I am. I am, and always have been, a girl. Suck it up bud cause I’m sick of repeatedly having the same conversation with you.” I pce my hand on my hip, cock my head, and stare at him balefully. “One final time, I’m a girl. This is me. I like me. I love my life now. You might wanna write that down to remind yourself of that fact because I am not doing this again. Got it?”

  He just looks at me for a little while and finally, hesitantly nods his head, and then gets up and leaves. Once he shuts the door, I sigh wearily. This isn’t hard, or at least, it shouldn’t be. So, why is he making an issue out of nothing? I’d love nothing more than to somehow help him, but I’ve done all I can do, and I’m sick of the circur conversations about it. Not to mention, I positively hate the constant reminders that I was ever considered to be a boy.

  ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

  So, about Homecoming, or more specifically, Jeremy and the dance.

  So, many boys asked me to be their date for it, and I mean a lot, to which I gently replied no, doing my best to be considerate of their feelings. Sometimes I wonder if boys are crazy. After all, insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting different results. Let’s just say the interactions are mentally exhausting and I didn’t want the guys to keep asking me, so I forestalled the issue by telling Jeremy that he was going to take me to the dance. He simply shrugged and said, “Okay.”

  Before I did that I wondered just how many of them was I going to have to turn down. I’ve never shown the least bit of interest in any of them. I’m nice to everyone, but I never flirted, never made goo-goo eyes, and certainly made sure my mannerisms were are neutral as possible when interacting with them. At least, I’m fairly certain I did. Listen, I may not have been a girl for long, but even I know how little it takes for a boy to think you might be interested.

  I’m going to leave it at that. So, at home, I told Mom that Jeremy and I were going to the dance and she almost bounced off the walls in excitement about getting me the perfect dress. She started rattling off all the things we had to do for it. I love my mom, but dealing with her when it comes to things like this leaves me grouchy and exhausted.

  It’s semi-formal, so that means shopping for a dress, heels, and everything else to go along with it. Then she’s talking about taking me to get my hair and makeup done at a salon as well. She probably wants to take me to the salon because my hair is quite a bit longer now, as it reaches the middle of my back, so there are a lot of ways they can style it. It amazes me how fast my hair grows since I take proper care of it. Anyway, Mom wasted no time in calling to set an appointment for me at the salon, then told me that we were going shopping after school tomorrow.

  My days at school are busy with csses and friends, so they generally fly by for me. After school is cheer practice, which Mom usually shows up for and today is no different. Most people wouldn’t believe the amount of hard work, and sweat that goes into being a cheerleader. Diana had kind of told me one time, which I blew off as hyperbole, but I was quickly proven wrong. Afterward, we head into the shower and change back into our uniforms.

  I enjoy shopping with my friends. However, Mom’s single-minded propensity to find the perfect whatever we are shopping for is just exhausting. She drives us to the rgest mall in town, where we go from shop to shop looking for a dress for what Mom keeps calling my ‘date,’ no matter how many times I have told her Jeremy and I are merely friends who are attending the dance together. Every time I tell her that, she smirks and says, “Sure, I get it,” which makes me roll my eyes and infuriates me.

  Honestly, I couldn’t begin to tell you how many dresses I tried on that I looked good in. However, she would shake her head and mutter, “No. Not that one.” In the 7th, or maybe 8th, shop we go into, she has me try on a blush-colored, off-the-shoulder, drape-sleeve dress that falls to mid-thigh. It’s gorgeous and I adore the style, even before I try it on. Once I do and look at myself in the mirror, I love it. Slowly twirling for Mom so she can get a good look, she finally nods and announces, “Okay, that’s the one. Get changed and find the rest of your outfit.”

  Thankfully, finding the heels to go along with my dress is nowhere near the ordeal it was finding my dress. We went through many of them before Mom chose some super cute Fuchsia strappy sandals with 4” heels with rge bows at the back of the strap. They’ll go perfectly with the dress since they provide some contrast. Then she picked out a shoulder wrap of a slightly darker color than my dress. Thankfully, that completed our little shopping trip.

  This was a somewhat painful experience, I want to look good for a few reasons. Of those the two most important are because it’s my first ever dance I’m attending and I’m a Homecoming Princess.

  I might be happy with my outfit, but I’m stressed out and mentally exhausted at the same time, so I’m looking forward to going home, eating, and taking a long hot bubble bath.