A Beginner's Guide to Gold Digging: Chapter 10

A Beginner's Guide to Therapy

Lily

Now

Two weeks after that fateful day at the museum, I walked up to my therapist’s office in a long, sheer pink skirt and white tank top for my monthly session. My hands were trembling as I gripped my purse tightly, and memories called out to me like a siren’s call. Memories of my first time here. 

7 Years Ago

Therapists’ offices all looked the same to me. Beige rug, a red couch, a few shelves containing books of different schools of the practice, a wooden desk with a fancy computer and a few knick-knacks to give it a personal touch, two windows on the wall behind bathing the good doctor in natural light so as to make them look friendly. It was all so hideously uniform. But my new endocrinologist had been clear, and so had Rob: this had to happen.

Dr. Pamela was a bespoke older woman with silver-white natural hair worn in a relatively short crop. She favored casual clothes, jeans and simple blouses, the only flourishes being the gold bracelets around both wrists. She sat on her chair, legs crossed, no notebook on her lap. Instead, on the simple coffee table between us, was a tape recorder. An old-fashioned one, that ran on actual tape. 

I sat on the couch with my legs spread, wishing I could disappear into my baggy Alice in Chains shirt. “So,” I said. 

“So,” Dr. Pamela echoed. “I looked at your file before you came in, and I have to say, it tells quite the story.”

“Does it, now?” I monotoned.

“It does,” Dr. Pamela replied.

“And what story is that?”

“I should think you would know it, given you were there.”

I rolled my eyes and leaned my head back against the couch. May as well see if this lady had bothered to do her homework or if she was as full of shit as the last three shrinks. “Tell it to me anyway, like I wandered into a movie halfway through.”

A strange smile flickered over her face. “Very well. Lily DiGiacomo. Age 18. Assigned male at birth, identifies as a transgender woman. Youngest child of two, parents Vincent and Arianna DiGiacomo, both deceased. One sibling, a brother named Robert, ten years your senior. Graduated high school two weeks ago, set to start community college in the autumn. And you’ve been DIYing hormone replacement therapy since you were fifteen.”

Shit. She had in fact read the damn file. Shit. Couldn’t bluster my way through this one. “Yeah, yeah that all sounds right to me.”

“Wanna tell me how that happened?” 

“Not really, but the endocrinologist won’t fill my prescription unless you sign off, so I don’t really have a choice in this one, do I?”

“Not really, no,” Dr. Pamela said. “Look, Lily, I’m not here to get you to de-transition. Just the opposite. One of my kids is like you. That was why I took you on as a client. I want you to be able to stay on your medication, even if I’m a little concerned by how you got there to begin with. So tell me: how did we get here?”

I sucked on a deep breath for about ten seconds before finally answering, “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Start at the beginning,” Dr. Pamela said. “Start with when you first realized you wanted to be a girl.”

I blinked. Going right for it, then. “Okay.”

14 Years Ago

“David! Show me your muscles, little man!” Dad said as I ran up to him in the driveway. I groaned- he was always asking me to do that. Drove me crazy, both because it always preceded him trying to get me to do chores and because it sent this rancid sensation down my throat like I was swallowing industrial waste. 

Still, I wanted to make my dad happy, so I raised my biceps and pretended to flex as I approached him. He was working on his car, his beloved, beat up old Mustang, cherry red and perpetually falling apart. His hands were covered in grease and he was sweating through his ratty old Red Sox cap, his heavy set frame leaning against the hood. 

“There we go. There’s my little man,” he said, pulling me into a sweaty hug. 

“Eww, Dad, stop!” I whined. 

“Heh, come on, it’ll toughen you up,” he laughed. 

“Mm,” I grunted. 

“Need you to help me with something,” he said. 

“Mmmm what?” I asked, dreading the answer. My fat ass and twig-arms could barely lift anything, let alone whatever he wanted me to carry. 

“I want you to go into your Ma’s flower garden and pick out some flowers. We’re going to visit her today. Your brother is gonna meet us there soon, so I want you to pick out something you think Ma would like.”

“But I never knew her,” I said. “How would I know what she likes?”

He gave a coy smile and mussed my hair. “Just… Give it your best shot.”

“Mm,” I said, running into our backyard. 

Dad had gone out of his way to take care of Ma’s garden my whole life. The front half was all vegetables, stuff he used in cooking, while the back half was a menagerie of flowers. I parsed through the rows, until finally, I found something that sang to me: pink lilies. 

I don’t know why they called out to me. To this day, I truly have no idea. But seeing them there, a warm buzzing resonated in my heart and soul, the perfect antidote to the weird feelings I got whenever Dad called me ‘little man.’

So, I picked a handful by the stem and brought them back to Dad in the driveway. 

“Oh, these are perfect,” Dad said. “Nice job.”

“Thanks,” I said, climbing into the backseat of the Mustang.

Dad got into the front, twisted the key in the ignition, backed us out of the driveway, and started us down the road to the graveyard. “You’re a lot like her, you know,” Dad said when we were halfway there. 

“Really?” I said. 

“Yeah, really,” Dad said. “She’d have loved you. You both… You both have a real delicateness about you.”

“What the hell- no I don’t!” I snapped. Delicate meant fragile. It meant weak. It meant… Girly. And that wasn’t what I was supposed to be. I mean, obviously; if I was, why would Dad constantly call me ‘little man’, ask me to flex my nonexistent muscles, take me to the construction site with him and introduce me to everyone as his youngest son. I was supposed to be macho. I was supposed to be like him. 

“Ha! And a lot of bite about you, too,” Dad said. “Like I said, you’re a lot like her.”

I wish I could be more like her, was the thought that tore through me like a gunshot as we made our monthly pilgrimage to my mother’s grave. Because truth be told, although I loved my dad, I didn’t want to be like him. But it was what I was supposed to be. 

Regardless, I looked at the lilies in my hand, the ones I’d taken from my Ma’s garden, and wondered if there were ways I could be more like her. Preferably ways that didn’t involve telling anyone. 

7 Years Ago

“Obviously, I didn’t know yet,” I said, now lying down on Dr. Pamela’s couch. “But after I had that thought… It wouldn’t leave me alone. And it started occurring to me within the next few years what specifically about her I wished I was. And I didn’t even know that trans people were a thing that existed at the time, so I thought… I thought I was just some kind of freak. That there was something wrong with me. I mean, what kind of boy wants to be a girl?”

“And when did you learn about the existence of transgender people?” Dr. Pamela said, resting her hand on her chin.

I grimaced. “Do we have to-”

“Yes, Lily, we do.”

I closed my eyes tight as the words escaped my mouth: “It was on the way home from that graveyard we were going to visit.”

11 Years Ago

Rob drove the Mustang through the warm summer evening as we went home. We’d skipped out on the weird little post-funeral party so we could sleep off the fact that our dad was fucking dead. Rob offered to let me try smoking pot with him, but I declined. There was something on my mind, something I didn’t want dulled or distorted. Something that had been on my mind since we found dad’s body earlier that week. 

You could die at any moment. Whatever future plans you had, they could be snuffed out in your sleep. There were things you could do to prevent it, but… Ultimately, it was on you to get them done before you croaked. So I opened my phone, pulled up a search engine, and typed in ‘why do I want to be a girl?’

I shut myself up in my room when we got home, and spent the whole night going down the research rabbit hole. 

So much information. So many stories. It was difficult to parse through, especially when so much of it… So much of it seemed so hateful and so bitter and so fearful. But one thing kept popping up over and over again, in every single forum and wiki article and discussion thread I found: if you want to be a girl, you are one. Boys don’t want to be girls. Which would make me… Transgender. 

And if I was transgender, then I could just… Be a girl. 

I didn’t want to tell anyone. Every testimonial I read from women who’d gone public about being trans seemed to end in tears. Tales of families broken and friends lost and careers destroyed and persecution from society at large. And I had no idea how anyone in my life would react: not Rob, not my friends at school, not my teachers. Odds didn’t seem high that it would be a pleasant conversation, though. Fortunately, the internet made many things possible, chief among them the purchase of testosterone blockers and estrogen pills on the down-low. It would be easier to keep it a secret. I wasn’t supposed to be this way, and if I did it stealth, then nobody would have to know I was veering off course. And besides, I was just doing it for me. 

The next morning, I woke up to Rob trying and failing to make omelets for breakfast. I went straight up to him and said, “I want to start working at the company with you. This summer.”

“Um, good morning to you too-”

“I’m serious, Rob.”

“Oh… Okay. Slight problem, though: you’re fourteen. You’re way too young to be working construction.”

“Then put me in the office with Zack,” I said, referring to our bookkeeper and, now that Dad was gone, our overworked, underqualified foreman as well. “I’m good with numbers and I’ve read all the manuals. You can pay me minimum wage and only let me work ten hours a week to start off with.”

“Kid, are you sure-”

“Yes, Rob, I’m sure,” I said. “Please. We need the extra help. And this… This is how I help keep Dad alive.”

7 Years Ago

“Was that true?” Dr. Pamela asked. 

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Though it wasn’t the only reason. I started saving up. Rob found it weird at first that I didn’t wanna spend all my money on comic books or junk food, but he didn’t ask too many questions. A year later, I had enough money to make my first purchase. Had to sneak out and take a train to Quincy to make it happen, but I walked away with my pills.”

“And you never told anyone?”

“God, no,” I said. “I wasn’t doing it for anyone but me. Nobody else needed to know. If I could have just kept it a secret my whole life-”

“Why?”

“Because… Because it was easier that way. Simpler.”

“Didn’t it wear on you? Having to keep up the pretense that you were a boy with everyone you knew? Having to hide how your body was changing? Not being able to share the truth of yourself with anyone?”

“It… It was annoying, yeah,” I said, trying to shrug off the shame festering in my chest as I stared intently at the blank white ceiling. “Changing for gym class in a bathroom stall got old real fast. Had to start taping down my boobs after two years in. But it… It was easier than having to face anyone.”

“Why?”

“Because they’d look at me differently if they knew what I was,” I said. 

“Even if they accepted you? Saw you as a girl, first and foremost?”

“Yeah,” I grimaced. “Even then. Especially then.”

“I suppose that brings us up to the incident that officially brought us here, doesn’t it?” Dr. Pamela asked.  

“Mmm. Yeah, it does,” I said, cringing. 

7 Years and 1 Month Ago

Kevin and I did what we always did on Saturday afternoon: rode our bikes to the comic shop together. Exams were behind us, prom was tonight, and graduation was tomorrow. Neither of us had dates to the dance, but we were planning to go to the graduation ceremony. 

Kevin had been my best friend since freshman year. We did… Everything together, honestly. He was a few inches taller than me, with sand-colored hair and freckles and pasty skin and a slender frame. Even on my most miserable, angst-ridden days, seeing him made me feel better. Lighter. Freer. And our weekly ritual helped with that a lot. 

We stepped out of the shop on Commonwealth Avenue, bags on our arms, him loaded up with new issues of Punisher and Hawkman and Deathstroke and me with three new trades for my Wonder Woman collection. I wore my usual ensemble of a baggy hoodie and sweatpants despite the high temperature and syrup-thick humidity in the air. We unlocked our bikes from the rack and started to walk, me already engrossed in my book. 

“I still don’t get why you like that girly shit,” Kevin side-eyed me as we walked our bikes down the street. 

“Mmm. Well, it’s not girly. It’s metal as fuck. She’s going to the underworld to fight Medusa and there’s swords and blood and fire and lesbians- it’s the best.”

“If you say so,” Kevin replied. I could practically hear him rolling his eyes, but I kept on reading regardless…

Right up until the point where a car drove past us, straight through a puddle. The resulting soaking wet debris slammed into me, drenching me and my comic in muddy water. 

I was so busy trying to make sure my comics weren’t destroyed that I didn’t notice my chest-bindings sliding off until the outline of my bust was visible through my soaked sweatshirt. “Um… Dude?” Kevin said, pointing at my breasts. “What’s going on there?”

Panic and shame daggered me in the chest and stomach. I grabbed Kevin by the lapel and pulled him into a nearby alley, slamming him against a wall. “I can explain.”

“Please do,” Kevin said, eyes narrow. 

“I… I…”

“You’re not… You’re not one of them, are you?”

I let go of him. “What do you mean-”

“You know. A tranny.”

That word… I’d avoided it for so long. I’d never heard it pointed at me. I’d never felt it before. And now my best friend was calling me one. 

My secret was out. 

“I’m taking your silence as a yes,” Kevin said, glare intensifying. “Gross. No wonder you like all that girly shit.”

“I don’t though,” I said. “I’m not… I’m not like that. I’m a girl, but I’m not-”

“I swear to God, if you say ‘not like the other girls’ I’m gonna laugh, because obviously you’re not,” Kevin rolled his eyes. “Disgusting. What’s next? You gonna chop your dick off, start coming onto me?”

“What?!”

“My cousin, the one in college, a friend of his started thinking he’s a girl and now they’re dating like a couple of fags,” Kevin said, taking a step forward, making me take a step back. “Do you think that’s gonna happen now? Is that why you’re telling me this?”

“Of course it’s not- I’m a lesbian!”

“God, that’s even worse,” Kevin sneered. “Like, I get it, watching girls make out with each other is hot shit, but you’re not a fucking girl. No matter how much you mutilate yourself.”

“Kevin… The fuck, man? I thought we were friends.”

He finished backing me against the wall. “Friends don’t lie to each other. Friends don’t pretend to be something they’re not. Have a nice life, freak.”

That was when he walked away, leaving me standing there alone, exposed for the lying creature that I was. 

 7 Years Ago

“Have you spoken to him since then?” Dr. Pamela asked me. 

“I tried to the next day, at graduation,” I said. “By the time I got there, Kevin had already told everyone what I was. That was how Rob found out. That was how I got dragged to a doctor and how they decided I needed therapy if they wanted to give me an actual prescription.”

“How did your classmates react?”

“Mostly they laughed at me,” I said. “Called me slurs. A few of them were nice, but… They were still looking at me like I was… I don’t even know what, but I didn’t like it. Especially the way some of the guys kept… Kept staring at my chest. It made me wicked nervous.”

“And your brother?”

“He’s… He’s supportive,” I said, wringing my hands together. “He said all the right things. But every time he looks at me now… I’ve never seen him look so worried. So concerned. Like he thinks I’m fragile. Like… Like I’m…” delicate. I couldn’t quite force the word out of my mouth, but I knew what it was. “He thinks I’m weak. Broken. And that if he says or does the wrong thing, he’ll break me even worse.”

“And what about you? Do you think you’re fragile?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “But I know I don’t want to be.”

Now

Dr. Pamela’s office was unchanged since the day I walked in for my first appointment all those years ago. Except the couch. She’d gotten a comfier couch. Which was good. 

“So, this whole situation with you and Crispin,” Dr. Pamela said. “How do you feel about it?”

“Mixed bag,” I said, sitting on the couch with my legs crossed, smoothing my long skirt. Dr. Pamela had done a double-take when she saw me wearing it, which stung, but I suppose it made sense. “He’s… He’s great. I really like hanging out with him. And I’m really grateful for all the stuff he’s doing for me. But I guess I’m also worried that… That he thinks I’m weak.”

“Why do you think he believes that?”

“Because he keeps trying to protect me from everything,” I said, playing with a strand of my hair. “Like last week at the museum. Or the first time he met Olivia. Or when I met his family. And… He said he was sorry, and he made it up to me by picking up Rob and I every day and making us breakfast and taking me comic shopping-”

“I thought you said he hated comics.”

“He does, but he seemed weirdly… Fine with listening to me ramble about them? It was bizarre. He even asked me to pick out something I thought he’d like.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah. He’s a mythology nerd, so I picked out some Wonder Woman and some Thor. That’s not the point though. He does all this stuff for me, and I can only think of two reasons why: the first one is that he feels sorry for me, and that just makes me angry on a visceral level.”

“And the other reason?”

“He… Actually likes me,” I said. “But there’s no way.”

“Why not?”

“He can do so much better than me.”

“Does he think that?”

I opened my mouth, but wasn’t able to find any words. Finally, I decided to change the subject. Slightly. “The thing is… I also keep having these… These weird dreams. Where he and I are… Are intimate. And he’s… He’s forcing me. And I like it. In the dream, I mean.”

“Interesting,” Dr. Pamela said, scrunching up her brow. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re-”

“A lesbian, yes,” I said, even as the simple act of referring to myself with that term began to feel more and more… Alien. When you’ve spent a decade ardently considering yourself something very specific… The idea that it could one day stop applying to you is… “I just don’t know what it means. And it scares the shit out of me. It feels like I’m hanging off the edge of a cliff with brutal waves and sharp rocks at the bottom.”

“Well, it’s possible you’re experiencing what’s known as compulsory heterosexuality, wherein gay women experience a false sense of attraction to men due to societal pressure.”

“Maybe. It’s… That possibility has definitely occurred to me.”

“The alternative, you realize, is-”

“I know!” I snapped. I took a deep breath. “Sorry, I just… God, this is all so confusing and scary and I hate it. I hate it. And I hate myself and I hate everything and I… I…”

“And what about the man himself?” Dr. Pamela asked. “How do you feel about him? Not the version of him in your dreams. Putting aside the frustration you mentioned- how do you feel around him?”

“I don’t even know how to describe it.”

“Just pick an adjective,” Dr. Pamela said. “Whichever one you think is appropriate.”

It took a few minutes of running my hands through my hair and shaking my leg as I combed the watery chasms of my mind, but I finally found one. “Alive,” I whispered. “He makes me feel alive.”