A video call

You settle onto a wooden bench near the pool house at one-fifteen, the afternoon sun warm on your shoulders. The video call connects on the third ring.

Dr. Iris Navarro fills your screen—dark hair pulled into a loose bun, reading glasses pushed up on her head, a coffee mug in one hand. Her office is visible behind her, bookshelves and a corkboard covered in student thank-you cards.

"Riley! There you are. How are you—"

She stops. Her eyes move across the screen—taking in the makeup, the blouse, the soft fall of your styled hair. You watch recognition flicker, then surprise, then something warmer.

"Oh," she says quietly. "Oh, honey."

"Hi, Iris." Your voice comes out in that practiced alto, steady. "I know this is a lot."

"No—no, it's not. It's not a lot at all." She sets down the coffee mug, leans closer to the camera. "You look... you look like yourself. Does that make sense? You look settled."

The words hit you somewhere deep. You tell her everything—the house, the technology trap that forced the initial presentation, the gradual realization that it wasn't a trap at all. That you'd been waiting for permission you didn't need. She listens without interrupting, her expression shifting from concern to something approaching pride.

"I'm not surprised," she says when you finish. "I mean—I am, professionally. You never disclosed anything in my seminars. But personally? You always struck me as someone holding something at arm's length. Watching yourself from outside."

She saw it. Before I did.

"I want to do this properly," you say. "Therapy. Someone who specializes in gender identity."

"I have three names for you. All sliding-scale, all excellent." She pulls a notepad close. "Dr. Elena Vasquez in Millbrook—she's about forty minutes from you, does individual sessions, specializes in young adult transition support. Dr. Tomás Reyes, he's telehealth only but he's brilliant. And there's a group practice in the next county that does evening sessions."

You take notes, your handwriting small and precise on the back of a receipt.

"Riley, can I ask you something directly?" Iris's voice shifts—still warm, but with that clinical precision you remember from seminars. "Have you thought about medical transition? What feels right to you?"

The question lands differently than you expected. Not invasive. Invitational.

"I want breasts," you say, and the honesty of it makes your cheeks flush. "Real ones. The forms are—God, they're nice, but they're not mine. I want to feel them when I lie on my stomach. I want them to ache when the weather changes." You laugh, surprised by your own specificity. "Is that weird?"

"That's not weird at all. That's desire. That's knowing what you want."

"But downstairs... I don't know yet. I think about it and I just feel... uncertain. Not no, but not yes either."

"That's perfectly valid. There's no timeline, no menu you have to order from. Some trans women want everything. Some want very little. Both are complete." She smiles. "You have time to figure that out."

You talk for another twenty minutes—logistics, insurance options, the timeline for getting an evaluation letter for hormones. By the time you hang up, you have three phone numbers, a referral email she'll send within the hour, and the strange buoyant feeling of being seen completely by someone who knew the before.

You're still sitting on the bench, phone warm in your hand, when you hear tires on gravel.

Theron's battered pickup rolls up the drive at 1:58. He steps out wearing a faded grey henley pushed up past his forearms, work jeans, boots. He spots you immediately—waves once, unhurried, and walks toward the garden shed.

"Hey, Riley." His eyes move over you briefly—appreciative, not staring. "Ready to resurrect a bicycle?"

You stand, brushing off your shorts. "It's in here. Fair warning—it's rough."

He follows you into the shed's dim interior, ducking slightly under the doorframe. The Bianchi sits where you left it, tires sagging, chain orange with neglect. Theron crouches beside it, running his hands over the frame with a mechanic's instinct.

"Good bones," he says. "Italian steel. This was someone's serious bike." He glances up at you, and the afternoon light catches the angles of his jaw. "Got a pump? And some WD-40 if you've got it?"