Day After Day

Jess

AN: June 2046. For clarification, that means Jess is 13 almost 14, Wren is 14, and RJ is 12.

Jess sits on top of the monkey bars in the playroom, idly swinging her legs.

"I'm gonna tell them tonight," she tells Wren.

Her best friend has remained floor bound and leans back to look up at her. "Are you sure?"

Jess nods. "Yeah. I've been putting it off for too long. Plus now that I've told you I'm going to I feel like I have to." Jess looks down at her hands, "Do you think they're going to be mad that I told you and RJ first?"

Wren bats at her foot. "Hey, no. They love you no matter what. I think they might worry that they've done something to make it seem like you couldn't trust them, even with your dad being, well who he is. But they aren't going to be mad."

Jess drops down from the bars to the crash mat. "Thanks Wren."

She still has a couple hours before most of the adults get home, but for now she wanders through the first floor of the house in search of her mama. Eventually Jess finds her in what's essentially a giant study. Technically the room is open for anyone who wants to use it, but Jess has only ever seen her mama, her dad, and Piper use it.

Jess throws herself over the exercise ball in the corner of the room, near her mama's desk.

"Hi Jesse. Is everything okay?" Her mama asks, pushing away from her desk slightly.

Jess nods. Then, before she can lose her nerve says, "Can we have dinner, just the four of us, tonight?"

"Of course. Any reason?"

Jess shrugs. "I need to talk to you, Mom, and Dad about something. Nothing bad, just family stuff."

"Okay. I'll let them know. Any requests for dinner, Mom is stopping at the store on her way home."

"Pasta? With the roasted tomato sauce Dad makes?"

Her mama laughs. "The one thing your dad can cook perfectly fine. Y'know we've been together for almost 30 years and they still haven't gotten any better in the kitchen than when we met. I'll let them know."

Jess bonks her head on her mama's shoulder. "Thanks Mama," she says before darting out of the office and back to the playroom.

***

Jess sits at the kitchen table with her feet tucked underneath herself. It shouldn't be this scary, she knows it's going to be fine.

Her eyes flit over to the door that separates the kitchen from the dining room and meets Wren's gaze. Jess pulls her legs up onto her chair to rest her chin on her knees. Her dad and mama are already sitting at the table with her, but her mom is still finishing up in the kitchen.

Her mom closes the door between the rooms when she joins them at the table. "Is everything okay? We haven't had dinner with just the four of us in a while."

Jess focuses intently on the table so she doesn't have to look at any of her parents and whispers, "I'm trans."

"Okay. Thank you for telling us," her mom says, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder.

Jess lets her knees drop, no longer feeling the need to protect herself. "Um, I've been going by Jess. Didn't want to completely give up my name."

Her dad gets up from where he's sitting across from her and rounds the table to pull her into a hug. "If you do decide you want a totally new name that's okay too." Jess nods against him.

"Wren and RJ know already, and a couple of my other friends from school. But nobody else yet." Jess ducks her head again at the admission. And when she looks up her parents are trading looks across the table that she can't read.

She figures that's probably enough information for now anyway and pulls away from her dad to start piling food on her plate. Eventually she'll tell them she wants to publicly transition for school next year and she wants to start medically transitioning. Or at the very least get puberty blockers because she is decidedly Not a fan of the first couple years of puberty so far. But for now this little conversation was enough.

AN: I have been sitting on this for well over a year. Not the actual story, but since I came up with Jess as a character I knew she was going to be trans. Hopefully unnecessary disclaimer: not all boys who wear skirts (ref: Halloween!) are actually trans girls (ex. Noah, he's non-binary and genderqueer as hell, but no one would call this version of them anything approaching femme, even in a skirt, they just vibe, and even if he were femme expression and identity are separate things).

Going forward all posts and author's notes will refer to her as Jess using she/her pronouns, however any chapters set before this point in time will still refer to her as Jesse.