At 2 or 3 in the morning, he kept poking me. “Are you awake? Are you awake?”

“I wasn’t.”

“I don’t know how to tell you this…” he said.

“Then don’t. Let me sleep.”

But then I thought I heard the creeping sound of tears edging into his voice. And that woke me up.

“What is it?” I said.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Look, you obviously want to tell me, or you wouldn’t have woken me up.”

“No,” he said. “You don’t get it, I can’t tell you.”

My mind raced with possibilities, some particularly vivid. I recalled the time an ex had confessed to killing small animals for fun. But I shook my head because Sean was so different, special. We had just celebrated our 3rd anniversary and he was having me look for rings I liked.

So I poked him back, prodded him, cajoled him until finally, nearly an hour later, he told me:

“I think I’m trans.”

“Oh my gosh.” I said. And I hugged him very tightly.

“I feel like a girl. Does that make you want to leave me?”

“No.” I said. “I’ll stay with you, definitely.” And then I fell back asleep.