Becca sent me a list of tastefully aesthetic coffee shops in the area, so I pick one at random and head out. I need something to keep me busy while Brian’s not around so I don’t spend my whole day checking in on the Diary. Just between Monday night and Tuesday morning, I lost almost a hundred followers. I keep telling myself that they were all bots anyway, and Tumblr’s finally cleaning some of those out, but really, no one believes that.

The line at the shop snakes out the door, and I consider turning around and going somewhere else. The truth is, though, it’s really a nice day out, and this place has the perfect vibe for my Instagram. I want to make sure I’ve got enough adorable shots in Denver to convince everyone back home that my life has been nothing but rainbows and sunshine since I left.

Someone holds the door open for me, and I step over the threshold. The smell of coffee beans wafts over me, and I inhale deeply because damn, I love the smell of coffee. I’m so far away, I can’t even read the wide, handwritten menu behind the counter, so I pull out my phone and look the place up on Yelp instead. It’s got great reviews, you know, if I trusted people on the internet to dictate my life choices.

I flip on the selfie cam so I can swipe my hair out of my face. When my parents told me we’d be moving to California in the fall, and I wouldn’t be returning to my school, I hadn’t even thought about what any of it meant. It just felt like a sudden brush of freedom—a chance to live my truth. So I blurted out that I was trans, and while I sat there in their stunned silence waiting for them to respond, all I could really think about was how soon I could start transitioning. The thing is, I hadn’t even known what the word “trans” was until freshman year, when that girl had taken the dive and put herself on the line by coming out. Sure, there was a part of me that always felt a little different, but everyone does, right? It was only after learning about another trans person that I even started looking up the terms, searching myself, and researching transition. And really, it all felt like some distant dream I could never achieve until I realized I’d be leaving Florida behind for good.

That was only three weeks ago, but in that time, I cut off most of my hair and bought half a new wardrobe. The problem is I’ve never had less than shoulder-length hair before, and I don’t really know how to style it, so it just kinda lies in a poof around my head.