My mother was happy that I was born as a little boy, but so was my father.

He was focused on work and money, while not being very caregiving.

Of course, what happened next was that he decided to divorce her and I was forced to move in with the father’s side.

I had no choice in that matter and it was painful not to understand what had happened.

Further, the problem started with school and me realizing what the world was really like.

It was quite confusing, and all the schools and grades supposed to tell you how well you are doing,

but also how do you fare against others. It was a competition for a future that was doubtful to say the least.

But at some point my father remarried and the woman she brought home was gorgeous.

She was kind and she granted me her tender love. It was simply the best feeling I knew.

She was the one to teach me, not school, how to think critically, how to always try to find truth yourself,

how to set a goal for myself and follow my dreams, and how to do things first, rather than regret not doing them later.

I admired how she talked with others and always had her way, as she was much more assertive than me.

I admired how she was always able to listen to me and make me smile on a gloomy day, as I was never able to cheer myself up on my own.

I also admired her female voice and sense of fashion, since I also wanted to attract attention, just like girls in my school who were popular.

That is to say, I always had the interest in knowing how it feels to have a female body.

I wasn’t really pointing that out to anyone, just convinced myself that this is quite normal.

But alas, I was mistaken, and what happened instead is that I secluded myself.

The boys in my class were always talking dirty, making inappropriate and childish jokes.

That’s not how I wanted to be, so I instead looked for small groups where manliness, or idiocy, wasn’t present.

Slowly towards the college days, my biological mother visited me and talked over things.

On that day she moved in with my current mother and father and we all lived together peacefully.

I didn’t know why, but I thought having two mothers would be fine too.

And that is to say, my biological mother was more of a classic one.

She was a workaholic, despite not earning much and was always tired.

She would clean around the house, ask me if I brushed my teeth and did my homework.

My current mother would never bore me with such, but nevertheless, I tried to help out the house.

I thought that is what a proper child should do.

And then, the college hit me pretty hard. I wasn’t able to get a degree and dropped out.

I had some option or chance to go back, but since parents were funding it, I decided that would be the waste of their money.

After all, I had no idea what to do after I get a degree. I didn’t have a dream job that was particularly interesting for me.

I also never looked for work normally, like all the other people, since the concept scared me.

And after some time, Virtual Reality hit me. It was a world unlike others, where you could even earn money by making models.

I tried a lot of things after college, one of which was 3D modelling, so I thought I would do that.

But after some time I realized what I actually wanted to do.

It’s because all my life I was a boy, dreaming of being a girl, wearing their clothes and stuff.

Here, in Virtual Reality I could become that girl.

And frankly, most of my other time I would spend on fiction, books, movies and games.

The ones in which the main character would be turned into a girl would be most interesting for me.

So naturally I had some ideas for how I wanted to present myself in Virtual Reality.

And I did. It was fun, but also it wasn’t, as many players just outright called me a man.

I didn’t want to be called a man in there, thus I began blocking those people.

Soon, there was only a small community where I could find comfortable speaking with.

But fun didn’t last long as me, and my father who was home at that time, received a message.

It was about my mother. It appeared that she had an accident during construction work.

I wanted to know her condition, what hospital she was transported to, all for nothing however.

She was dead, buried within the ruins of a building that fell on her head.

It was a mistake in construction, caused by a false budget my mother approved.

And then it hit me again, a lot more than before.

My mother wasn’t the person I took her for, she was a liar and a capitalist focused only on income.

I was her reward after work, her property that she loved and adored, my biological mother said.

It wasn’t true love, but yet some part of me wouldn’t admit to what she said.

I told her that she is lying, that my deceased mother actually loved me.

Yet, afterwards I noticed something strange. I lost interest in Virtual Reality.

I lost interest in fiction as well. I started to wonder what to do with my life.

There weren't many choices however, since I would have at least to go back to college.

And really, what I was working towards if I was still stuck in this male body?

There was only one escape for me that I told myself was fine.

I took a stool and tied a rope to a metal bar somewhere on the ceiling.

It was sturdy enough to carry my weight, I discerned, so what was I waiting for?

At first my legs and hands were shaking, as I didn’t quite know what I was doing.

Then my heart started pounding, knowing that maybe in the afterlife I will meet my mother.

As I climbed on the chair I would squat down to see if the rope was the right length.

That moment was when I noticed the chill down my spine, which reminded me of my lower body and its parts.

Only then I started crying, as the loop found its place around my neck. I closed my eyes and heard nothing.

All there was after that was a silent snap and my neck no longer felt anything.

I don’t know what happened next, but I recall that my head was oriented towards a window.