Everyone deserves to have a secret. I mean, you can't just walk out into the world baring all of who you are. If that were possible, nobody could trust anybody. There'd be too many problems.

Secrets are safe. They protect you and those around you. That is, if they don't get found out.

That's why everyone deserves to be happy.

It hurts and it stings and burns but if feels so damn good. It's like the fire inside of me is finally burning and I can see it and feel it and its real. It's so goddamn real. These feelings, these fucking feelings and emotions they're real and they're true and they're there.

They are there.

The hot metal leaves a mark. A mark that will remind me everyday that I'm not who I want to be. I'm not really me. This body doesn't fit what's in my head. I look into the mirror searching desperately to see if I can find myself but he's not there. Or he hasn't arrived. I'm waiting for him to come.

That's what I tell myself.

These eyes aren't supposed to look at breasts and lips. This body isn't supposed to want to feel soft skin and smell perfume. This is wrong. Totally wrong. But it's me.

I'm trying to grow a beard. Or I think I am. I can't, though. My cheeks will forever remain hairless. I try to make myself appear more rugged, more boyish, but I'm just too girly.

I'm five and my hair barely brushes my shoulders and my mom is angry when she sees me holding scissors. Worst, they're the adult scissors. She usually keeps them in her bathroom, and now she knows that not only have I given myself a home-haircut, I've also gone snooping through her personal stuff.

She's mad and she wants to yell but she won't allow herself because I'm young and I don't know better. I was just acting on a whim, but I later know, on instinct. It was an instinct to want short hair. To feel it tickle my ears but never my back. To feel my bangs hide my eyes, but never be too long.

She says that I'm in trouble and that I won't be able to play outside for while, but that's okay because I prefer the inside. Inside where I can revel in the pleasure of running my fingers through my hair and feel them stop short because my hair no longer reaches below my chin.

I smile and tell her fine. I deserve the punishment and I'll serve the time. Could I go to my room now? I see her frown and I wonder why when she talks with my grandma she says that I'm not like my cousin Lucia. Lucia is a girl and I want nothing to do with her. My mom is always trying to push me into playing dolls with her. Dolls? Pfft. They're stupid and girly and I just want to run and be like Drew, my older brother.

He's so cool. He already has girlfriends, or girls who are his friends. I know they like him because they're always coming up to me to ask me if he likes any of them.

I shrug because I honestly don't know. How am I supposed to know? He talks about them like he talks about food. But he never talks about them like he talks about football. Football is his life and my dad never has time for him, so he's pretty upset that he can't play with him anymore.

I do. I offer my company but he says that I'm too fragile. Fragile? I was the first one to reach the top of the tree in our backyard. He bet me I couldn't beat him and I did. He was kind of a sore loser, but I accepted his pout and his 'my leg got stuck' excuse because I knew deep down I had won fair and square.

I was tough too, so football wasn't that hard to play when he finally relented and let me catch the ball while he threw it. He and I were best buddies. We still are, but it's like he's separating himself from me. Like this secret that I bury inside of me is sometimes too much for him. Like I'm helping him drown in a sea of lies that I tell. I'm sorry, I say, and he says it's fine, though I can see the pain in his eyes.

He doesn't tell me everything. Like how his first kiss was in fourth grade behind the gym with Clarissa and how it lasted thirty seconds until they had to stop because they got caught by Coach Mendez.

Or how he thinks Mandy, the head cheerleader is hot and he wishes she'd look his way. He shouldn't worry because she told me that she thought he was cute and she was just waiting for the perfect time to ask him out. I promised her I wouldn't tell him all the while leaning a bit too close to try to smell what kind of shampoo she used because she smelled so pretty. Her hair was shiny too. It looked so soft and I was about to touch it when I remembered I had to walk home and if I didn't hurry I'd be late to play with Drew.

It all changed though when I realized I had a crush on Katie. She and I were in the hallway by coincidence and I was wearing my new Sketchers that Mom had bought me that weekend. They were pink and had little butterflies on the side. I hated them but I couldn't wear Drew's old shoes anymore because they were getting bigger as he grew. I was drinking water and she was beside me. I'd just straightened when she commented on how she loved my shoes and where did I get them? I answered of course, with distaste, might I add, but she grinned and told me she'd buy a pair because she liked them so much. I noticed how her eyes were small and brown. She had the longest lashes and although her eyes weren't significant they always shined when she smiled. They were so pretty and I stopped myself before I made a fool of myself.

I didn't know what I was feeling. My chest was getting bigger and Mom kept hinting I might become a woman soon and that I had to be careful around boys. I didn't get it. Why boys? Shouldn't I be careful around girls? They're the ones that make me nervous and make my palms sweat. Especially Katie. But boys? They were my buddies. Drew made it possible for me to hang out with his friends. They were really funny but gross. I liked it. It felt like I was supposed to be there with them…Be one of them.

I never quite understood why I caught my mom crying every now and then at night until after Katie and I turned 13. Thirteen was monumental for me.

It was when I almost kissed Andrea. She was weird like me. We'd hung out a couple of times afterschool because she lived closed by and I had a couple of classes with her and lunch. She was cool and I liked her but not like that. I just felt like I'd found somebody like me. We both had short hair and we both wore clothes that were tomboyish. We also kind of acted the same way.

It was the summer going into eighth grade and we were bored. We were in my room playing some hand-me-down video games from Drew. They were crappy but what more could you do when it was boiling outside and you had nothing to eat?

She threw her controller down in frustration and I followed suit. It was fun to mimic her. It annoyed her so much. She proposed the idea to play Truth and Dare. The 'or' had been changed when my mom got mad at us for making a huge mess in the kitchen while mixing ketchup, coffee beans, sugar, salt, mustard, peanut butter, and whatnot to drink down for a dare. We decided that if it was a truth and a dare, it wouldn't be so hard to not get caught.

She went first asking me a question and then coming up with a dare that fit the question. We were an hour into the game (we were really, really bored) when she broached the subject of who we were attracted to. "What's the most curious thing you've ever wanted to do?"

I, taking the game very seriously, knew I had to answer as honestly as I could. We were close friends and she deserved that. So I made the mistake of saying 'kiss Katie'. She wasn't my crush anymore but I'd always wondered what it would have been like had I had a chance to kiss her.

Mind you, I've never been kissed, so it was just pure imagination for me.

I was surprised when her eyes didn't widen and when her face didn't screw up into a disgusted expression. So it was okay for me to want to kiss a girl? Cool.

"I dare you to kiss me." She stated with a glint in her eye and something in her face I couldn't decipher.

Okay. Here goes. I prepared myself. I leaned toward her and angled my face to match my lips with her when my mom abruptly came in.

Now she, on the other hand did all the things I had expected from Andrea. In fact, it was way worse.

I rather not recount what happened after she got over the initial shock of seeing me on my knees in front of Andrea who was sitting pretzel style ready to plant one on her.

Nevertheless, I was to never talk to her again and we couldn't hang out anymore.

I was kind of okay with that. I knew I was going to get in trouble so it wasn't a tough loss for me not to play with Andrea anymore.

I did learn something important. Something I think I had known all along.

I wasn't a girl. I was a boy. A boy who naturally liked girls and who wasn't supposed to be wearing dresses. A boy who was trapped in a body not meant for him.

I quickly understood the difference between Andrea and me. She was a girl who liked girls and that was wrong, but I was a boy in a girl's body who liked girls and it was okay. I never told her that. My big secret.

We moved and I forgot about that. Uncomfortable memories aren't pleasant to remember for anybody. That day changed my life because I was able to connect my 'odd' behaviors with my parents' reactions towards them. When they looked at me, they saw a girl. A girl with long hair and a dress. When I saw myself in a mirror, I felt like a boy, but I saw what they saw. I hated that. When you can't connect what you see with what you feel. It's like life gave you two different puzzle pieces and you were supposed to find a way to make them fit one another. How could I fit my puzzle pieces if they were totally different? If society deemed me a 'freak'? An abomination? A disgrace?

And to my parents: a disappointment.