He She It

seventeen: the adam to eve thing

Right up until she walked into her bedroom after school, Eve had been on a high.

Not only had Lilly asked her to her Dad's wedding, (apparently his boyfriend had thought the Adam to Eve thing was borderline genius - to quote Lilly's impression of him: 'that is so clever! Like the Bible, yes? This Eve, she sound magnificent!') but Michael had actually been nice, she'd had three twelve year old girls compliment her on her new t-shirt, (and then had to endure Grace's 'I told you so song' and accompanying dance for the next ten minutes) and assembly - which usually entailed a thrilling anecdote from the wild life of Mr Hades and then an out-of-tune hymn - had been cancelled.

All in all, it had been a pretty good day.

And then she'd arrived home, and utter chaos had ensued.

She'd changed back into an outfit from her Adam days in the school toilets (bootleg jeans, much to Grace's disgust) and had wrongly assumed that that was all she needed to do to keep her new identity a secret from her parents, an assumption that was proved incorrect the second she entered her bedroom and saw three very, very bad things, all at the same time:

1) Her new clothes, which she'd stashed away in the bottom of her wardrobe, were now spread out onto her bed.

2) Her make-up drawer had been ransacked, too; pots of nail varnish and tubes of lipgloss were scattered across her desk, the mascara that Grace had given her sitting on top of the bin.

3) Finally, and worst of all: her Mum was stood in the centre of the room, the pair of high heels that Eve had first learnt to walk in in her hands and a look of utter disappointment on her face.

"You weren't meant to find those," Eve said, her voice barely louder than a whisper. "I - they were meant to stay hidden."

"Mr Hades rang," her Mum said, eyes fixed on the shoes in her hand and jaw clenched. "He told me he'd seen you trying on a dress in town at the weekend."

Eve didn't reply.

"I couldn't believe it," she continued, throwing the heels onto the floor. Eve winced as they clattered against her bed post. "I thought it was somebody messing with me - like that Michael kid that used to give you trouble. I told your headteacher I thought he was a liar, Adam. That my son has never tried on a dress in his life. You made me look stupid."

Eve still said nothing. She walked over to the heels and placed them back in their box. Picked the mascara out of the bin. Scooped up the rest of her makeup and placed it back into the drawer.

"For Godsake, say something," she said, walking over to her daughter and snatching a lipgloss from her hands. They made eye contact for the first time since Eve had entered the bedroom. "Just tell me it's all a misunderstanding. Please, Adam."

"My name's not Adam."

"Wha - of course your name's Adam! I had you christened that, for Christsake," she said, letting Eve's wrist drop back down to her side. "Now look at me, and tell me this is a big mistake. All of it. Your Dad is going to be home soon, and I'd rather we didn't have to involve him in this."

"My name's not Adam," she repeated, slamming the drawer shut and going over to her clothes. She picked up the bodycon dress - the stupid, fucking bodycon dress - and started to fold it. "And I'm not your son, Mum. I'm your daughter."

"No," her Mum said, shaking her head. "No, no, no. Your name is Adam, you're my son, and you've never worn a dress in your life."

"Wrong," Eve said, placing a skirt on the pile of folded clothes. She looked up at her Mum. "My name is Eve, I'm your daughter, and I've been wearing dresses for the past couple of months."

"You're confused."

"I've never been more sure about anything."

"You're not transgender, Adam," she said, her voice wobbling a little towards the end of her sentence. "Listen to me. You're a boy, and you're young, and you don't know what you want. But you don't want this."

"How many times do I have to tell you?" Eve said, throwing the pair of shorts she'd just folded back onto the bed. "It's Eve, Mum. I'm a girl."

Her Dad's car pulled into the driveway, then, and her Mum breathed a sigh of relief. "He'll knock some sense into you," she insisted, glancing out of the window as he slammed his car door shut and strode towards the house. "Tidy your room up. I'll call you downstairs in a few minutes."

She managed to fold two more skirts before it hit her, and then she was gone. First, it was anger: she kicked her bed, she threw shoes across the room, she smashed a photo of Adam in a football kit, beaming at the camera like this was who he really was: a rough-and-tumble, honest-to-God boy. Then it was fear - fear of where she'd go, what her parents would do, what she would do when this was all over. And then, finally, like the most pitiful grand finale she'd ever witnessed, it was sadness.

"Fuck," she sobbed, sinking to her knees, a tank top clutched to her chest. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

"Adam!" her Mum shouted, and the name only made her cry harder. "Adam! Come downstairs, your Dad needs to talk to you!"

Whatever he wanted to say, Eve was one hundred percent certain it was not something she wanted to hear, and so she twisted the lock on her door and pressed her back against it, head buried in her knees as she tried to stop bloody crying.

"Stop crying," she muttered into her jeans. Adam's jeans. "Stop crying. Stopcryingstopcryingstop-"

"Adam! Get down here, now!" her Dad yelled. "I have something to say to you!"

With one final, desperate sob, she wiped her eyes on the tank top (Grace would have a fit, she was sure) and went downstairs, her lower lip wobbling as she did so. Her Dad was pacing the length of the living room, muttering things about therapy, about his son, about how he just couldn't stand for this.

Eve didn't give him the chance to say it any louder.

"And I've got something to say to you," she said, taking a few deep breaths and willing her voice to steady. "It's fucking Eve."

***
(A/N: whomp, there it is - what you've all been waiting for and what I've been internally screaming about for the last three days. or half of it, at least. I was slightly tempted to just delete it all and write 'and Eve's parents were chill and Mr hades got fired and everyone was happy forever' because I didn't want to make my babe Eve cry, but realism is a thing so...)