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You really thought college was going to be a clean break for you.
No more family that while outwardly would support your transition but whispered and prayed behind your back to have this tame, manageable, feminine idea of yourself that never truly existed.
No more peers that would gleefully default to calling you she or referring to the name on your lanyard ID (because it was a "security risk" to put anything but your legal name on it) the minute you didn't embody the perfect student and the passive queer who would never challenge their perceptions or make them question the extent of their so called tolerance.
No more childhood home town burdened with memories of the girl you forced yourself to try to become.
It was supposed to be just you. No deadname. No expectations. Just boundless possibilities of a future that could be anything you willed it to be.
That's what orientation promised.
What the student experience coordinator enthusiastically sold you on.
What the fresh new ID with your name and your face with freshly buzzed hair felt like in your hands.
And then they stuck you in a girl's dorm…
That alone might not have been the end of the world.
Sure, you had been meticulous about requesting a studio dorm in the co-ed building right above the all you can eat breakfast bar meal plan dining hall way in advance, but clerical errors happen all the time. That's how you had "earned" those few distinguishing decimal points in your GPA after all.
It was the girls you were stuck with that were most of the problem.
There was Stephanie, sophomore and former high school athlete injured in her last year who "settled" for a criminology degree. She kept her dark brunette hair up in a high pony and her crimson stained lips in a constant bitter straight line. She was stubborn as a mule and would half bully-half threaten you and your roommate (but mostly you) into whatever tightly wound household routine she seemed necessary that day of the week via the algorithm and which way the stick up her ass was bending. You were just thankful she wasn't here for nursing.
And there was Chloe, freshman (like you) and completely directionless (unlike you). One would thing having the hapless short blonde with startled doe eyes trailing you around to all sorts of campus life events wouldn't be all that bad, but between her always loudly referring to you both as "us girls" to your peers and her helplessness in everything from setting up a weekly planner down to using the vending machine, you were at your wits end.
At least she seemed like a high drop out risk. Although being alone with Stephanie for half of a semester barely sounded better.
Today seemed like another shining example of the absolute bullshit the rest of your starting semester had in store.
As you tried to sit on the frumpy communal couch and start some introduction to American literature reading, Chloe and Stephanie boxed you in on both sides.
"Hey, babe!" Chloe sing-songed in that faux innocent syrupy sweet tone.
You sucked in a sharp breath through your teeth.
Stephanie seemed to barely perceptibly twitch her lips up.
A coy little smiling at your suffering? Seemed on brand.
"Sooooo, Stephanie found this super duper neat synching fitness app that she thinks will really help keep us in tip top shape for the semester. She already set me up with it. It's super simple. Stephanie, show her!"
You rolled your eyes, but you were past the point of thinking Chloe had enough brain power to get any use out of correcting her on your pronouns.
"I really am not into that stuff. Especially for free. If you aren't buying something, you're the product. Especially with health data. That's risky," you tried to offer a polite explanation for you declining that Stephanie might grasp.
Chloe pressed her chest into the side of your arm as she leaned in, "Stephanie told me the tech start up behind it is super legit. Plus, it's not like you have anything to hide, riiighhht?"
You glance to Stephanie, silently praying for some kind of assist.
Her eyes don't glance up from her phone screen.
"It is a matter of making sure your body has what it needs. Nutrition and exercise is important for maintaining a strong mind and immune system especially in times of high stress. You don't want us getting sick, do you?"
She said it so sternly and damn near condescendingly, like a mother scolding her child for not washing their hands properly before dinner.
You had no room to argue.
"I don't know if I really have the storage for something like that though."
"Nonsense. Let me see," Stephanie states matter of factly.
Before you can process, your phone is in her hands, and she tip-tapping away at your screen.
When she hands it back, a new app labeled in calm green script up top as Best Self is opened on a log new user menu.
"You know I could have downloaded it myself," you weakly protest.
"I know, but you seem to be so hesitant to do what's best for you. I just want us all to make the most of the…unusual circumstances this semester has put us in."
She pats your knee.
You want to peel it off- her hand or your skin, either would be fair game at this point.
Instead, you focus on the screen.
A single question to start.
Sex. There's a blue glowing icon labeled male on one side and a soft pink icon labeled female on the other.
"And remember, you have to pick the one that matches up with your biology," Chloe so graciously pitches in.
"For accurately calculating metabolism is all. The science is very simple like that."
"OMG, Steph. You remember last week when we had that DUI seminar, and she goofed up in the quiz picking the mail alcohol tolerance limits and the guest speaker had to come around and make her do it from scratch."
You rolled your eyes at the reminder, and despite your inner turmoil over the label, you clicked the pink icon to get this process over as soon as possible hopefully.
As the screen flicked over to the next battery of questions, something felt different.
A certain fuzzy, cotton-like feeling in your head and around the edges of your thoughts.
Something settling internally. Old thoughts and nerves slotting into place.
"The next few are easy peasy lemon squeezy. Me or Steph could even type them out for you!"
And every rational instinct told you it was a stupid idea to concede even an inch of control over anything personal to either one of these women.
But the weird buzzing in your brain and in your chest after that first button tap urged you to take whatever shortcuts you could to end this encounter and lay flat until your next class.
You handed your phone over to Chloe.
She grinned, far too jovial for the menial task of inputting health metrics in your opinion.
Whatever. How bad could this possibly be? You were planning on deleting the app ASAP after anyway.
"Okay. First question is height," she squints at you, doing some clearly strenuous mental math, "5'5, right?"
You nod.
Delicately manicured fingers tapped the screen in time.
Not too bad. Or at least not worse. You must be getting to in your head
"Next question is weight. Gosh. That's a tough one. I was never good at eyeballing it. Maybe 115."
"Like that wasn't obvious," Stephanie snips, "Try 120. At least."
More tapping, that never wracking click clack of acrylic on glass.
"Shit," Chloe hisses.
Always a comforting thing to hear when someone else is using your phone.
"What happened?" Stephanie asked seemingly unphased, still engrossed in her own screen.
"I got mixed up by our convo! I type 135, and it won't let me go back in fix it."
And as soon as the words were spoken, the fogginess returned to your head alongside a churning in your stomach.
It seems the freshman 15 was coming early and instantaneously.
And worse yet, the new bubbling fat eminating from the warmth in your stomach was distributing in a feminine pattern.
Your once relatively flat stomach puffed up as the epitome of muffin top under your mundane black band t-shirt, padding out your hips over the edges of your jeans and rounding out your gut into a girly paunch.
Denim creaked as far deposits padded out your inner thighs just to really drive home the now physical (instead of just psychological) torment of your dormmates' whims.
Stephanie shrugs and mutters something about how an encouragement for weight loss might do you some good.
Chloe mirrors it was a shrug of her own.
No big deal, right?
"Ooh, fun one! Do you get your period regularly?"
You had no clue in what world even for the most cisgender woman in the world that could be considered a fun subject of inquiry.
"They go through at least 13 communal pads every three and a half weeks without replenishing the stash, so I would say that's a yes," Stephanie responds before you can even process or apologize or rebuttal."
Chloe nods and pointedly taps another set of boxes on the screen.
You didn't get to tell them this was likely the last month or so you'd have a period. The testerone shots were supposed to square that away, but you were still getting the dosage just right.
You didn't feel capable of articulating that. Or much at all.
Out of nowhere, your breast felt swollen and sensitive under the constrictive front of your binder.
That churning in your gut boiled to a fever pitch, stomach cramps from the added space begging to be filled once more mixing with what you could only imagine was pre-menstrual cramps.
"Hmm, this one is sexual activity. What should I put?"
You opened your mouth.
Stephanie spoke over you, "Look at them. Come on now, Chloe."
She giggles as she taps away.
Another warm bolt straight to your core.
Nipples pebbling uncomfortabley against that now chaffing binder nylon.
Hot arousal pooling down engorged folds and fat nub of a clitoris.
The fabric of your boxers was hiked up by your fatter thighs making you acutely aware of your anatomy and how it was now suddenly screaming to be fucked and filled.
Your face scrunched at the discomfort and embarrassment of all these mounting sensations.
Chloe's chest once again found its way to squish against your side.
You felt less perturbed by it this time than when she had done it a few minutes previously that felt like a life time ago.
"Don't pout like that, girl! We'll get you better than ever. Guys will be falling all over you by the time the winter mixer comes around."
You don't remember ever mentioning your sexuality to your roommates before.
For good reason though. If they knew you liked girls, Stephanie probably would have imposed more insane rules to reduce any risks of you so much as seeing her calves, and Chloe would probably beg you to make out with her at parties to make her crush of the week jealous.
But hearing Chloe muse about you like this on some sophomore lunkhead's arm sounded so right. So natural. So like…yourself.
"Sooner if I have any say in it," Stephanie glances up briefly to give you another smile. That must be some kind of record.
"And speaking of that, it is asking fitness goals."
"Don't give her something too hard. Maybe improving posture and alignment. No sense in working her to death."
Stephanie had always previously had the courtesy to at least use they, which was still misgendering but at least was some kind of effort, but you felt no need to correct her when she slipped into that she/her set you used to dread.
Another tap from Chloe. Another layer of fogginess to your usually sharpened sense of resistance.
"Oh, and last but not least, name?"
"All her mail is addressed to Daisy."
"OMG! That totally makes sense for you. So cute. Our names all work so well together. Like it was meant to be."
Stephanie nods approvingly at the sentiment.
Five pointed taps off the on-screen keyboard.
Then enter.
And it was sealed.
Your name was Daisy.
Your name is Daisy.
You belong here in the girl's dorm.
You belong with Stephanie and Chloe. You are a girl just like them.
This is your Best Self, and you are so happy that they helped you realize it.