“We all do the best we can. No one prepares you for this. Even well-meaning other trans people with lots of exposure.”

I had to go to therapy, so I left Blithe listening to rain sounds on my bed. The timing worked out because I wasn’t sure I knew how I had “emerged.”

I took a charming purple train to Chelsea. In Sophie’s office, I regressed into a whiny baby as the strong, wise adult listened to my complaints about Aiden’s perfection, Blithe’s oblivion, the fact that one could soon pay to sit in a “comfort” subway car, the receding of my hair.

“Let’s pause here, Pen,” Sophie said, leaning back in her deep, padded chair.

I’d skipped a session when we were in the desert. She was wearing bright red lipstick, and her motorcycle jacket hung on the door. She was trans, and although she surely had her own suffering and her own past and her own rage, when we were together, she was like a smooth stone surface, warm with sunlight.

“Because this is a really interesting moment for you to observe Aiden in a new light, which is the only reason I’m letting you talk about him right now. Instead of going down those same muddy, stuck, mossy tracks that always mire your wagon”—she became a third-rate poet when speaking of my pain—“can you get your neural pathways to fire in a different way?”

I took a deep breath and stopped myself from asking if I shouldn’t just get a better job so I could buy the tech for that. This healing business was hard.

“Fine. I noticed that Aiden is anal about a lot of things. He shares his bod with everyone, but he never talks about his family or a gf or bf or g-qf or poly situation. He can’t write a narrative report, but he did let me borrow a desert outfit, which was a nice change from these weird preppy ensembles I’m always throwing together out of nostalgia. I prefer that he doesn’t spend too much alone time with Blithe, because I don’t want Blithe to feel pressured to be perfect when he should be free-falling into the Shadowlands. He’s been flirting with Minna—”

“Okay, let me stop you there. Instead of framing the negatives about Aiden, can you turn those into positives about yourself?”

“Ugh, I’m not that anal unless my boundaries are askew and I’m close to an anal person. I’m trying to repair things with Margot and celebrate the lives of my parents. I’m dating someone—well, you know, it’s a cas hookup situation, but it makes me feel alive and famous to myself. I really hope you don’t think I’m delusional and making up this fake celebrity to—”

“Stop.”