My knees won’t stop bouncing.

I know it’s annoying Emily, but I can’t seem to stop it. My thoughts are a storm trapped inside my head, and I must move something to keep it from breaking my skull.

The hairstylist comes in. They clap their hands together and they smile behind their face mask. “Hello, how is everyone?”

My mom smiles as well. “We’re doing alright, how are you?”

“I’m good, glad to have some new customers. What’re all your names?”

And that’s the question, isn’t it? I came out a year ago, but I don’t have a name picked out. I’ve been so caught up in everything else that it slipped my mind.

“I’m London,” my mother says.

Yeah, I have two moms. The ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bills can shove it.

“Annalise, but you can just call me Ana,” Mom tells the stylist.

“Emily, she/her,” my twin sister says, shaking the stylist’s hand and smiling brightly.

I hesitate, glancing at Emily, Mom, then back to the stylist. “I, uhm. Haven’t chosen a name yet. Just call me Mack.” My chest tightens at that, that name that feels so wrong, and a surge of anger comes up next to it. It’s not my full deadname, it’s not feminine, but it still feels like a knife to the heart. Adding, “I use he/him pronouns,” eases the sting, although not enough.

The stylist nods. “Understandable, it’s a big decision. Nice to meet you all, my name’s Asher, he/him.”

There’s a chorus of ‘nice to meet you too’s that goes around the room.

“So, who’s going first?” Asher asks, glancing between Emily and me.

“He is,” she says, gently pushing me.

I turn and shoot her a glare, then face Asher. “Me, I guess.”

He chuckles. “Alright. Sit down here-” he pats the chair in front of the mirror, “-and I’ll get my stuff ready. What kind of hair cut are you thinking?”

I sit, tugging my hair out of its ponytail. It settles in soft curls around my face. I look away from the mirror. “Have you ever watched Better Things?”

“Yeah, I love that show.” He puts a cape over my front, fastening it behind my neck. “That too tight?”

“Yeah.” I’m lying. It’s awful. I hate having things on my throat, but I know it’s needed. “I’d like the haircut Frankie has.”

“Alright, I can do that.” He looks at me in the mirror and his cheeks lift in a smile as he tugs lightly on my hair. “Let’s get this off you, now, yeah?”

I nod. “Yes, please.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

I close my eyes, stomach tightening with anxiety. I’ve been fighting for this haircut for months. Now… it’s a dizzying rush of nerves and excitement.

“Can you put your hair back up?” Asher asks. “It makes it easier to get the length off.”

“And we’d like to keep it,” Mom chimes in.

“Sure, yeah.”

I pull my hair back again. “That alright?”

“Perfect, thanks.” He grabs a pair of scissors. “You’re sure this is what you want?”

I nod. “Positive.”

“Okay.”

I close my eyes again before he starts cutting, but I still feel the first snip. It’s a small bit of pressure off my shoulders, more falling with each snip until it’s all off.

“Here you go,” Asher says, presumably handing the remnants of my hair to Mom.

A hand squeezes mine, the feeling telling me it’s Emily and that she’s, somehow, more excited than I am. But that’s Emily for you – she takes other people’s joy and amplifies it tenfold. She was the first person I came out to and has been my biggest supporter through thick and thin.

I turn my hand over and squeeze back as a buzzing noise starts behind me. Clippers, I presume, confirmed when cold metal brushes up the back of my head. I tense against a shiver.

“What shape do you want your hairline?” Asher asks.

“Square, please.” From what I know, that’s the most ‘masculine’ shape.

“Gotcha.” He turns off the clippers. “Come over here so I can wash your hair really quick, alright?”

I nod, surprised at how light my head feels already.

He’s gentle but quick while washing, efficient, not leaving enough time for me to get fidgety before I’m back in the trimming chair.

The next few minutes are a blur of clipping, talking, and tugging, and then- “You can open your eyes now.”

I do, and then I’m staring in the mirror and seeing myself.

The thing about dysphoria is, while you know the face you look at in the mirror is technically yours because it’s the face everyone else sees, it never feels like that. Transitioning is like you had a twin who died, so everyone looks at you and sees them and you’re left screaming into the void that they’re not me, they’re not here, I am my own person, and looking in the mirror is staring into their coffin.

Except this time when I look in the mirror, I’m not staring in a coffin. I’m not looking at Mackenzie, a dead girl with long, pretty, blond hair and rosy cheeks like a doll.

I’m looking at a boy with curls spilling down his face, the opposite side shorn close to his scalp in a loose fade, my mismatched eyes, one gray and one green, my scars, my lopsided smirk of a smile.

“What do you think?” Asher asks.

I turn and look at him. “I think I know my name, now.”

“Oh?”

“My name is Marcus.” Something in my chest snaps into place with the words, letting me breathe a bit easier.

He holds out a hand. “I’m glad I could show you yourself, Marcus.”

I shake his hand firmly. It feels like my face might split in half from my smile. “Thank you.”

And in that moment, I know three things.

My name is Marcus.

I am a man.

And nobody in this godforsaken world can take that away from me.