"There's something you're not telling me, isn't there?" Tiff asked.
"What?" Katie asked, a little too loudly and a little too quickly.
"You saw the words on the label, you couldn't have missed them. You weren't surprised or freaked out about this. The only time you seemed really upset was when you thought you would be stuck halfway between. You wanted it this way, didn't you? You wanted to be a guy."
"No, I-"
"Katie, if you're going to be a guy, don't start by lying."
Katie glanced away from Tiffany's unblinking eyes.
"Tiff, we've been friends for a long time, right? And in all that time, you've never been over to my house, right? Haven't you wondered about that?"
"Yeah, I wondered, I figured you would tell me why when you were ready."
"I'm ready now. My dad, my dad beats my mom, sometimes he beats me, although not so much now. I never wanted you to see him or meet him or see what he does to my mom. Being a girl, I was always afraid that I would meet someone like him--I know when my mom married him, she didn't know things would be like they are, so how could I know. I always fantasized about a nice, kind guy. But the thing is, over the years I stopped fantasizing about being with a sweet guy, and I started fantasizing about being a sweet guy, the kind a woman deserves." Katie swallowed hard. "The kind you deserve. Tiff, I'm in love with you. I have been long before this all started with the milk."