The Greatest Lie Part 6

In my rare moments of leisure in the weeks following my close encounter with death, I had had little opportunity to talk about it. Of course, the police had asked perfunctory questions, and I had testified at the coroner’s inquest, but until my next appointment with Dr. Erika Wright, I had not verbalized the anxiety that gripped me whenever my frenetic schedule gave me time to think. The slow spiral toward death, the flickering lights of my failing consciousness, the sensation of surrender, and the thunderclaps that roused me from my sleep replayed in an endless loop, which I noticed only when life’s everyday distractions receded.

"Were you happy when you thought you were dying?"

"Not happy or sad. Just, somehow, fulfilled and accepting."

"Why were you prepared to accept death?"

"It wasn’t like that. It was, like, death was accepting me. And then it cast me back."

"Weren’t you happy when you realized you were saved?"

"I didn’t want to die. But was I happy? Am I happy now? Not really happy, for I have faced and accepted death, and now realize I will someday have to face and accept it again."

"Try thinking of it this way. Although you have to face death twice, you have, in a way, lived two lives."

"My life isn’t that much different. I’m still living in this schizo world, where half the time I’m a boy and half the time a girl. Is that what you mean by two lives?"

"No, I mean that from now on, if you want, you can start living as a girl. Your dedication to the community and your heroics on its behalf have completely turned me around on that. I am going to make your transition as easy as possible for you."

"Really. Like getting me out of the dorm? Epstein says he’ll sue if he has to."

"I’ve already written the letter. You’ll be getting a housing voucher and a meal allowance in lieu of the dorm fees."