Rising Dawn

"I don't know how I can make this easier to tell you, Mr. Andrews, but there's nothing more we can do for you but to suggest you get ready for hospice. The cancer has metastasized to the point that even full radiation and chemotherapy will not stop the aggressive advance." The doctor said to his patient in his rudimentary Basking Ridge, New Jersey office.

"Sigh. I thought that was gonna be the case." said the patient. After taking a deep breath, he continued, "I can't thank you enough Dr. Patel. You have been so helpful in trying to eradicate the cancer. I just don't know what else to say." The patient turned to his long-time girlfriend, in tears in a nearby leather office chair. "Dana, I know this is gonna hurt. No matter what, I still love you. You were a wonderful girlfriend for the last 16 years. I don't know if I'd even be here now if I didn't have your energy to push me through. Let's make sure the last few days, however long they are, are the best."

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My name is Evan Andrews. I am a 31-year old stock trader from Montville, New Jersey. My long time girlfriend and partner-in-crime, Dana Andriksen, is a 31-year old antique store owner in nearby Dover. We met in high school after a couple of bullies left me laying on the high school track. She and I fell in love immediately. She loved my feminine view of the world. She also knew I was one of the few people she could talk about the fact she was trans to. Her parents, both high school counselors, were very supportive of her coming out when she was 13 as a trans woman. By 15, she had fully developing breasts and you would never know that she was assigned male at birth.

On the other hand, my parents, rich lawyers for a prominent firm in Manhattan, never understood me. They were out often arguing cases for those who had more money than I could imagine. As a result, I was left alone with my older sister, Jessica. Jessica, three years older than me, had a boyfriend named Marvell. While I slept in my bedroom in the next room you could hear Marvell and Jessica getting it on, a lot. She worshipped him. However, by 2009, she found he had cheated on her with a different lady. However, before then, she had taken to a habit to boss her little brother around, and on occasion, dress him in her clothes because she never got a younger sister. She would raid her closet for various items, panties, bras, blouses and skirts. If my parents weren't home, there was a good chance she'd have me dressed up. With them gone so often, there was not a lot of parent to son talks about gender roles and how I should be in high school. It was just, get good grades and behave for your sister. My parents' jobs definitely left us with money for my sister's desires.

While I never told her, I did actually enjoy the feeling of being a girl. I was never exactly masculine. I hit puberty late. I didn't ooze angry toxic energy. When I was in high school I was 5ft 8in tall and 170lb. One wig and I could pass for a girl in her outfits. My parents did give me permission at 16 to grow my hair out. As a result I had a nice mix of brown hair with blonde tips that reached to my shoulders. While my sister was at Princeton, I took some of her leftover clothes for my own personal enjoyment. Most of the outfits she fit me in, she took with her or had donated long ago as I grew out of them. My personality in high school was very reserved around guys, and I even gotten permission to not have to use a locker room for I felt so out of place. I just changed for physical education classes in the nurse's office. There was no one there joking about your personality or look, or what genetics may have given you. Just yourself. I commonly would take a pair of my sister's panties and wear them to school. I felt really feminine in them.

However, at 18, my mother discovered my secret stash of panties and pantyhose under my bed as she cleaned up the bedroom during Spring Break. My mother and father did not seem to understand that I felt more comfortable thinking I was a girl. In their world, they were thinking "These are Jessica's. Not yours. Boy becomes man, girl becomes woman," completely ignorant of the evolving world around them when it came to gender. This is despite living in New Jersey, a very progressive state for its time. Unfortunately, I never told my school guidance counselors about my internal desire to be a girl. The day my mother found the stash, my father grabbed his belt from his closet and gave me a good whipping for disappointing him. As he was the one paying for my college tuition at Montclair State, he stated that while he was paying for it, I would not be focusing my attention on being a woman. I was born a boy and he damn well made sure that I promised I would focus on my education in the hopes of getting into a prominent law school down the road. I complied. From that point I had to put my interests and desires on hold to satisfy undue pressure from my father. I did manage to keep my long hair though.

Dana also went to Montclair State, but as a history student with a minor in business administration. She always felt most comfortable being close to me, knowing we each had the other to keep us happy. When I was with Dana, I was not Evan anymore. I was someone else. I was someone happy with my life. Dana would do my hair in some feminine form and let me borrow some of her clothes. She was about the same size as me. Anything she wore fit me perfectly. On weekends, if we had free time, we'd go to New York City in full feminine outfits. I enjoyed it. No one knew me as Evan Andrews. They knew me as Dawn. I liked that name.

However, once I finished college, law school stopped the fun again. Dana went back to live with her parents for a bit. I went to New York University's law school. I did not enjoy law. However, my parents wanted me to be a lawyer. However, in law school, I also got to hang out with some Wall Street bigwigs, who taught me their job and the market. I could always handle numbers and odds well. I got a job during law school at a nice firm on Rector Street that helped pay the law school bill. (My father was only gonna pay for my first education, not any thereafter.) Despite acquiring my juris doctor in 2018, I had yet to actually practice any law in a courtroom whatsoever. Instead, I was just plugging away at my desk on Rector Street.

Dana and I finally got to move out of our parents' places that year. She had been working full-time at an antique store in Dover and when the elderly owner died, she was given control of the store. She liked to hobnob with the rich residents of Morris County who came to buy her stuff. She would talk to anyone. Unlike me. Not a single person knew she was trans. They just saw a gorgeous woman with an incredible gift for gab and to sell antiques. Dana kept pressuring me that I should transition and just finally change my name to Dawn Andrews-Andriksen. However, life kept me too busy to put much stock into it.

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Then came March 29, 2021. After COVID had been at its worst, Dana's store had been shuttered for months because no one could go out. She was masking regularly, so was I, despite working remotely from our Montville townhouse. I had not been feeling well for weeks. We thought it might be Long COVID. She took me to Mountainside Hospital in Summit to see a doctor. They wanted to me to see a specialist and recommended I head to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Basking Ridge because something was wrong. There I met with Dr. Rubem Patel. I also mentioned that I had dealing with dark urine and skin yellowing. After running a litany of tests, they discovered I had stage 3 pancreatic cancer.

"We have it as 3 for now. However, it could be 4 very soon. This form of pancreatic cancer is very aggressive and as a result, we will have to go full on to be able to slow it down, Mr. Andrews." Dr. Patel stated bluntly. "Meaning we have to start radiation and chemotherapy within a week. A very aggressive form. You will obviously lose your hair with the radiation treatments. But if we want any hope of saving your life, we have to start like now."

Dana cried in my arms there in his office. I pulled my glasses off and brushed off my tears. "Stage 3 pancreatic cancer......so I am gonna die?" I asked Dr. Patel.

"Well, I wouldn't say it like that, but it is likely your lifespan has been cut for earlier than you would desire." he responded.

At that point, I could not hold on any more. I just sat there in Dr. Patel's office for the next 20 minutes crying like a six year old. A lot of pain had been answered, just to bring forth more pain. This one mental. Dana couldn't believe there's a chance she could lose her confidant. The only one who had protected her since high school. At just 29 it didn't seem possible. Most people who develop pancreatic cancer are older than 65. Not 29. We hugged in our tears for 20 minutes while Dr. Patel left the room to give us time. When he returned, he gave me the plans for how we were going to handle the radiation and chemotherapy. I thanked him, jumped in my Mazda with Dana and we drove back to Montville.

Both still miserable, Dana fell into a little bit of a depression period while I went to get cancer treatment. With her store closed due to COVID and just reopening in the last month, finances from her side were tough, but we had enough from my job to keep us stable. With me needing chemotherapy it was much harder though, as I had to take time off work to get treatments. Some days I just could not get out of bed I was so exhausted and stuff. While she spent a lot of time focusing on her future, she also worked hard to make my present feel as normal as possible. She ran to the mall and purchased a wig that matched my now departed hair so I could feel like I still had it. She offered sex when I was feeling up to it, just to give me some kind of pleasure. When that happened, it was hot. It was like we were in college again. I would slobber all over her cock and she would do the same to mine. We would flip fuck each other until the sun rose. We were in peak love, despite my body no longer being in peak shape.

Come September, I went in for more tests to see the benefit of the radiation. They had managed to keep it down a little bit, but there was concern it might come back within a month. Yet, I pressed on. By next March, 1 year after diagnosis, it was upgraded to Stage 4, but I still managed to find strength to keep trying as they looked for every way to possibly fight it. However, by September 2022, there was signs my body was fighting a losing battle in this war for internal control. I would go a week sometimes without leaving my bedroom, I had to take medical leave cause I was so sick. I had lost weight and not eaten well in recent days. Dana called Dr. Patel and they rushed me back to Basking Ridge. That's when I got the fateful news that it was terminal.

That night she called my parents as I laid in bed. She explained to them that the end was near. However, that was not all she explained as she would tell me later on.

"I called your parents, Evan. They are prepping for your funeral and will pay for it. However, I told them to specifically state the tombstone said Dawn Andrews-Andriksen. Not Evan Andrews." she said.

"Why did you do that?" I asked (and coughed).

"Because with so short of time left, I want to make you and I's final desire as a couple true. We're gonna make you into Dawn and let Evan die a few days early. I want you to die happy and we both know you would be happiest as Dawn." she responded. "Your parents did support it and finally understood after all these years how you truly think."

She wasn't kidding. I did want to be Dawn. Life had just gotten in the way so much I never had a chance to undergo transition. And now, there would be no transition, not to a girl anyway. Just to the afterlife, if there is one. With my days numbered, I'd rather be dying a girl than the boy I never really should have been.

Dana soon returned with a new wig, makeup, nail polish, a full feminine outfit that would look good even in death. She promised that I would wear this in my coffin too, though I wish she had not told me that. After an hour, she had me looking like a doll, which was tough considering I had lost a lot of weight and was down to skin and bone in a few areas. It was hard to hide that I was dying, but she did the best she could.

After she broke open a bottle of wine for us to share together, she and I just laid in bed, staring at the stars outside our bay window in the bedroom. We did not talk about tomorrow while we drank. Just everything that had occurred in our lives together and how much we loved each other. Soon after her 2nd cup of wine, she put it down and kissed me as hard as she could. Knowing I was low on energy, she took control, taking off my skirt and putting herself on my cock one last time. Well, we thought it was the last time. We ended up making love all night. You wouldn't have known it was the end, but as the sun blew away the starry night, Dana fell asleep and I closed my eyes, knowing I had gotten everything I really wanted.