Announcement Hello, lovelies, and welcome to Beginner's Guide to Loving & Leaving! This one I've had cooking for a while now, and it was originally going to be book 2 before I decided to write Gold Digging first. As always, thank you for coming with me on this wild ride of series, and I hope you enjoy it! As for new readers, this one is a bit different than the previous two and can be read standalone from the rest of the series, albeit with all the BG goodness returning readers have come to know and love!

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  Daisy

  4 Years Ago

  I flew across ice, skates carving lines in the rink. The air around me was cold enough to cancel out the stench of sweating athletes that would otherwise wreck my nostrils. The crowd screamed my name, a half-dozen beautiful girls wearing my jersey all competing to see who could go the loudest. I already knew from personal experience which of them would win, and I smirked as I realized I could probably wind up with group-sex tonight if I pyed my cards right. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a young man nearby the girls, east Asian and slender with shaggy bck hair and a grumpy, almost despondent energy about him. He looked familiar… Maybe we had a css together? It was hard to tell from this distance. He was also pretty, extremely pretty, but I did what I always did and shoved that very dangerous thought into the farthest corner of my dumb jock brain.

  The puck came towards me courtesy of my teammate, Steven Straczynski, and I leaped into action right away. The announcer was hard at work as I made my way towards the visiting school’s goal. “And Oliver Johannson has the puck! The seventh-round pick in the NHL draft, already signed by Winnipeg, is on the move! It’s his st game as a college hockey pyer before he goes onto bigger things, but it looks like he’s gonna secure one final win for the Terriers on his way out!”

  A foot from the goal, I wound up my stick and twisted my hips, looking to hit the puck as hard as I possibly could. However, before I could connect, something inside me, in the top of my left knee, severed with a sickening rip.

  And then, PAIN. Lots of it, enough to make me scream bloody murder and colpse backward onto the ice. The crowd went silent, as did the commentators. My teammates rushed over, but I could tell it was already too te. Something inside me broke. My affect slipped, the proverbial mask torn off my face as it contorted into one of rage and agony and sheer fucking shock, and the people surrounding me sent my custrophobia spiralling.

  I could feel the world spinning underneath me as everything above grew further and further away, unconsciousness ciming me right before what was supposed to be my fairy tale ending; my punch-the-sky-victory before I finally fulfilled my childhood dream of becoming a professional hockey pyer; my happily ever after, cruelly snatched away.

  The really sad part? Things only got worse from there.

  3 And A Half Years Ago

  Six months since my injury, five months post-surgery, four months into physical therapy, and I was still walking with a cane. I limped over the sidewalk through the streets of Duluth, Minnesota, snowfkes errantly drifting around me as they danced downwards from the sky. Down, and down, and down, which was seemingly the only pce I was going anymore. The sky was dark with the early-night of winter, and if you’d told me the weather was reflecting my mood I’d have fucking believed you by that point.

  I opened the door to my therapist’s office, and was quickly pced inside the over-lit room and sat on the red leather couch. Dr. Shei, a prim and poised older white dy with long, voluminous gray hair cascading in waves down her back and the most perfectly-rendered mascara I’d ever seen, took her seat across from me.

  “How are we doing today, Mr. Johannson?” she asked, her voice delightfully high even as her words stung enough to make me wince.

  “Please don’t call me that anymore,” I groaned. “It just… It doesn’t feel good.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not Mr. Johannson. That’s my dad. And he’s… Not here. Not like he ever is,” I grumbled, not making eye contact with the good doctor as I slumped forward.

  “He still hasn’t reached out?”

  “Not so much as a text message since I got injured,” I said, my mask slipping, my voice shifting into the bitter monotone I worked so hard to hide around most people. “It’s like I’m dead to him. My brothers are barely any better. It’s as if they got this glimpse of someone other than the indestructible superhero they think I’ve always been and now they’re… Just…”

  “Just what?”

  “I’m not a man anymore to them,” I said.

  “And how does that make you feel?”

  “I… Look, I’m not a hockey pyer anymore,” I said, a strange shifting sensation going through my chest. Like puzzle pieces being moved around. “And to them, and hell, to me, that’s what a man is. My whole freaking identity was wrapped up in it. And it’s gone now. My recovery is going way slower than it’s supposed to, and even if I’m medically cleared to get on the ice again, it won’t be any time soon. If I were a first-round draft pick, if I were the top guy, maybe they’d be willing to give me a few years to rehab, but that ain’t me. By the time I’m better, my window will have closed. So yeah, I guess I’m… I’m not a man anymore.”

  The pieces kept shifting, locking together into new positions, slowly revealing an unknown picture. A little bit at a time, it felt like a realization was bubbling up to the surface. My pulse quickened, dread pumping through my veins as my words caused me to feel… To feel…

  Dr. Shei asked again, “How does that make you-”

  “Relieved,” I said, leaning back in my seat and staring wide-eyed at the ceiling as it fully registered. The picture was gradually coming into focus, piece by piece. “That’s the worst part. I feel relieved. Like I’ve had this horrible burden lifted from me.”

  “The burden of manhood?”

  “Yeah,” I said, a gulp catching in my throat. “But that doesn’t make sense. It’s… I’m supposed to be a man. Not being one shouldn’t feel like a relief.”

  “Do you like being a man?”

  “‘Like’ has nothing to do with it. I just am one.”

  “But do you like it?”

  “I don’t… I don’t know how to answer that question.”

  “Name some things about being a man that you enjoy. Just start with that, and then we can see where it takes us. Okay?”

  “I… I like sports,” I said, pulse growing wilder and wilder by the second, more puzzle pieces moving into positions that actually fit instead of the bizarre mess they’d been in erstwhile.

  “As do many women,” Dr. Shei pointed out.

  “Yeah, but not the same way guys do.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Uh… I… I don’t really know,” I said, my voice so ft even I barely recognized it. “I guess… I guess that’s just what I’ve been told all my life?”

  “What other things about being a man do you like?”

  “Uh… Kegstands? Partying? Shooting at gss bottles?”

  “I hate to tell you this, but none of what you’re describing is inherently gendered in any way. You might associate those things with manliness, but they’re not inherently masculine.”

  Shit. That made sense. This dy was good at her job. Was it her perfect makeup? Was that the source of her power? “Girls. I like girls. And that’s-”

  “You’re aware that gay and bisexual women exist, correct?”

  “Oh. Right. Why so they do,” I stammered, fending off the urge to start picking at my nails. “Uh… Look, I just… I’m a guy, alright? And I’m not living up to it anymore-”

  “And you find that to be a relief. You find not having to be a man relieving. Why do you think that is?”

  I grinded my teeth, the jigsaw puzzle nearly complete, the impending image scaring me fucking shitless. “What are you getting at?” I growled.

  Dr. Shei drew a deep breath, then said, “Have you ever heard of transgender women?”

  “I mean, I think I’ve heard people talking about them on social media? I don’t really pay attention to that stuff most of the time, but like… They’re what, guys who wanna be girls?” My eyes damn neared popped out of the sockets as I finished my sentence. The final pcement of the final jigsaw piece completed the puzzle, revealing a terrifying image that threatened to break me apart all over again.

  “That’s close,” Dr. Shei said. “But it’s more accurate to say that they have women’s brains despite their masculine bodies, and often, but not always, desire to change their bodies to better align with their minds. Have you considered-”

  “I can’t be,” I said, leaning forwards, my willpower crumbling as I picked at my fingernails and I stared intensely at the floor.

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t be, okay?!”

  “Let me ask you in a simpler way, then: have you ever wanted to be a girl?”

  Dozens of memories screamed out to me, of every time I’d wondered what my life would have been like if my parents’ firstborn had been a daughter instead of a son. Wondering how I’d wear my hair, how I’d dress myself, if I’d still py sports, if I’d still like the same things, if I’d be… If I’d be happier. “I mean, yeah, but who hasn’t?”

  “Most men, dear.”

  “That can’t be right,” I said with a nervous ugh.

  “As a general rule, men don’t want to be women. They don’t even think about it. But you have, I take it?”

  “Well, yeah. But I don’t think that makes me transgender- I just… You know, sometimes I see a girl, and I’m attracted to her, but I also… Kinda admire her? Like, how she looks? Maybe I get a little jealous of how pretty she is, that she gets to wear all the fun dresses and makeup, and have beautiful long hair, and be cute and bubbly instead of angry all the time? Is that really not something guys think about?”

  “Have any of the men in your life ever indicated feeling that way?”

  “No, no, it’s just me,” I said, staring at the image of the completed puzzle, wishing desperately it was something else. “Its why I kept it to myself.”

  “And how long have you had these thoughts?”

  “As long as I can remember,” I said, tearing out a hangnail and watching the blood flow freely from my fingertip. “I think the first time was… When I was four or five? I remember my mom taking me with her when she was out running errands, and there was this dy at the mall in a pastel pink sundress with flowers on it and I… I remembered thinking I wanted to try it on. But I didn’t say anything, because even back then I knew that… Knew that boys weren’t supposed to wear dresses.”

  “Putting aside the fact that that is a highly arbitrary line drawn by our patriarchal, cisheteronormative society,” Dr. Shei said gently, “What if you’re not a boy?”

  The picture was right there in front of me, spelling out a single word. Three sylbles, eleven letters. “Oh God. Oh God, no. This can’t be happening. I can’t be- I shouldn’t be-”

  “Shouldn’t be what?”

  “Transgender,” I whispered.

  “But are you?”

  For once, I didn’t think before I spoke. All my years of training broke apart, the instructions my father had drilled into me about always wearing a mask, always behaving like how other people behaved. None of it mattered in the face of cold hard truth. “Yes,” I said.

  Dr. Shei smiled gently. “Okay. Then let me just be the first to say, welcome to womanhood. Ms. Johannson.”

  I wanted to hate those words. I wanted to run away. But hearing that, being called that… Felt warmer, sweeter, better, righter than anything I’d ever felt in my life.

  3 Years Ago

  I downed my testosterone blocker and then pced the estrogen tablets under my tongue, feeling them dissolve and spread relief through my blood and soul. Five months since I’d started on these things, and I was finally starting to see results: the beginnings of breasts, some more fat around my hips and butt, softer skin. As I looked out from the cabin of my boat at the marina where I lived, I breathed in the gently warm spring air and began to process what this meant.

  I wasn’t walking with a cane anymore, but I still had a slight limp. The doctors said that it should go away over time, but they didn’t say when. I would never fulfill my childhood dream of pying professional hockey, but at that point I was honestly starting to wonder if that was my dream or my dad’s.

  He still hadn’t spoken to me. He paid my rent and sent me money for groceries and other expenses, but that was as far as his fatherly generosity went. And given the nature of his more… POLITICAL… Rants at family dinners starting when Mom divorced his sorry ass, I don’t think he’d be super jazzed about having a trans daughter. Or any daughter, for that matter. I’d be dead to him. And then I really would be someone else.

  I ran hand through my dirty blonde hair. It was down to my shoulders now, falling in waves. I’d always had what my previous girlfriends had referred to as a ‘pretty boy face.’ That, combined with the longer hair, and with my new breasts and hips, meant there was a good chance I’d wind up what the trans girls I’d talked to online called ‘male-failing’ in the very near future (even with my height). Maybe it was time to lean into it. Dr. Shei had been nudging me to start my social transition soon. I was five months into hormone repcement therapy and four months into electrolysis. I could start being someone new, if I wanted. And I very much did.

  A name. I needed a new name. I thought long and hard, and I remembered that day when I was just a small child wishing she could try on the pretty sundress she’d seen a woman wearing at the mall. Pink, with flowers on it, with… With daisies on it.

  “Hi, I’m Daisy,” I said, and hot damn did that gender euphoria hit good! Okay, that was easy. It was cute and girly and… It felt like me. Gave me this tingling feel of bliss and relief and serenity, rays of warm light caressing my cold skin and coaxing me back to life.

  With step one out of the way, I opened my ptop and looked up hair salons near me. I was still using one of my dad’s credit cards, so I couldn’t put my deadname down as the person who wanted the cut. And ‘Daisy Johansson’ would probably make my dad think I’d gotten impulse-married or adopted a kid without telling him. So, perhaps a new st name as well. I mean what the hey, it wasn’t like Dad would want me to keep using his.

  Posters lined the walls of my cabin, all for old movies, all for my favorite director. It was so simple, so obvious, and yet nobody would suspect a thing. And hey, Mom’s Italian. Why not get in touch with my heritage?

  And so, Daisy DeMille was born.

  Two Years Ago

  “You look nice,” Dr. Shei said.

  “Thank you,” I said, pying with a strand of my now mid-back length golden hair. I’d come to therapy straight from the salon after my quarterly trim, my waves cascading around me. It was soft and voluminous and so damn pretty and yeah, maintaining it was a pain in the neck but God it was worth it. I also wore a hot pink dress, long-sleeved with a low neckline, plus white leggings as a concession to early-spring chill in the air. My eyebrows were sculpted into thin arches, my makeup an immacute combination of dark eyeliner and red lipstick and perfectly blended foundation. My ears were freshly pierced, golden studs that matched my hair, and a flower neckce of my namesake hung around my throat.

  I was damn near perfect.

  But not quite. My nails, both finger and toe, were still a complete horror show from my constant biting and picking, and my voice still needed a lot of work. It was getting better, but it had nearly slipped into a lower register at the salon when I wasn’t paying attention and I’d had to silently fend off a panic attack for the proceeding twenty minutes. Plus, just in general, I kept almost dropping my affect in public, even though I was supposed to be better than that by now.

  Near-perfect was deceptively far from genuinely perfect.

  “I assume there’s still no word from your family?”

  “My youngest brother, Erik, texted me the other day,” I said, the angry monotone threatening to break free of my mask. “He asked if he could have my old skates.”

  “I see.”

  “Yeah,” I spat. “Actually, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “What’s that, Daisy?”

  “My doctor says she can refer me to a surgeon for vaginopsty,” I said with a sly smile. “My electrolysis is done and the money I have saved up would cover it. But I need a note from a therapist for it to get approved.” “Well, I’m happy to help with that,” Dr. Shei said, pride in her eyes obvious even to me.

  “There’s a specific doctor I have in mind,” I continued. “He’s in Boston.”

  “Boston? That’s-”

  “Far, I know. But I wanna get some more distance between my family and I. Them being in Minneapolis is too close for comfort, even if they never visit. They don’t know about me, and given what they’re like, given who my dad and brothers vote for, I don’t want them to know. I want… I want to be someone else for real. I wanna disappear. Start over. I lived there for all of college, so I know the city, but I doubt anyone there remembers me at this point. I’ll be able to just… Let go of who I used to be forevermore.”

  “Just… Vanish without a trace?”

  “I’m dead to them even without them knowing I’m trans, so it’s not like they’ll care.”

  “I suppose I can see your logic. Are you sure about this?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “I need this. I have enough money saved up to make it work, and I’ve got my new IDs, and… I’ll have to figure out a job at some point, but there’s going to be at least a year-long waiting list so I’ll have time. I can start over in a new city, somewhere nobody knows me, and then I won’t even have to be trans to anyone. I meet. I can just be… Normal. Just a conventionally attractive blonde woman, living her life beneath notice.”

  “... Okay. If this is truly what you want, I’ll help. But it’s going to be difficult. You’re going to have to do everything right if you want to pull this off.”

  I nodded. I knew that. For this to work, I would need to be better. Not even perfect would suffice. I needed to be better than perfect.

  Good thing I was never one to back down from a challenge.

  Now

  I stood inside my cabin, a light flurry falling onto the marina outside. My hands on my hips, I breathed in a wistful sigh. I was going to miss this pce. I was ready to leave, but still, you don’t live somewhere for four years and not get a little attached to it. I would not miss shivering in here during the dead of winter, and was greatly looking forward to having central heating, but hey, end of an era and all that.

  My stuff was already in the car, I had all my identification cards, and my account was full of OnlyFans money, so as far as I was concerned I was all set.

  When I turned around to face the exit, however, my heart nearly stopped.

  “Oliver, what the hell are you doing?!” my father, Aleks Johansson, screamed as he stood in the doorway. Behind him were two security guards in suits and ties and dark sungsses, a tall white man and a short southeast asian man, giving each other what I imagined were bewildered looks behind my father’s back.

  “I thought that was you on OnlyFans, but I wasn’t sure,” Dad… Aleks said as he approached, fists gathered, death in his eyes. His security detail occupied the doorway, while my giant gray-blonde deadbeat of a dad looked ready to beat me to death and oh my God my dad saw my OnlyFans ew ew eeeeewww what the fuck!?

  “Look what you’ve done to yourself,” Aleks snarled. “You’ve become a groomer. I should have known you were mentally ill- ever since you were a child, you’ve always been freakish. I always looked the other way because of your talents, but this is… You’re going to come home with me right this instant so we can fix you. You look pretty far gone, but I’m sure with a doctor’s help we can right this ship-”

  Fear and panic were knives in my chest and throat. I could barely breathe, I was so afraid. And the ck of oxygen left only basic thoughts avaible to me, thoughts like ‘run’ and ‘hide.’

  The front door wasn’t an option. So I did what any panicked idiot would do in a life or death situation: I jumped out the window.

  In my defense… Actually, I got nothing. It was a really dumb thing to do, but it was also the best I could come up with.

  The top of the boat wasn’t too high up, but I still expected the nding to hurt. I tried to nd on my back, given I wouldn’t be able to drive with a broken leg, but instead of hitting the hard, unforgiving metal of the docks below, I suddenly found myself situated in the arms of a beautiful young man with shaggy bck hair. He was lean and wiry, and had a tired, almost defeated look on his face. Well, it had looked defeated at first: as soon as he saw me, it shifted to the bewildered expression of a man stunned into silence.

  “Thank you for catching me,” I said, “But we should probably run.”