When Henry began to grow his breasts at the age of twelve, his dad noticed right away. In the bathroom, father and son grinned into the mirror together, shirtless, flexing their muscles and preparing for their first shaving lesson. Henry saw the first flicker of concern cross his dad’s face: a slight tightening of the eyebrows and a frown.

Turning away from their reflections, he leaned down and touched Henry’s chest near the right nipple.

“Did you run into something?” he asked. “This looks a little swollen right here.”

Henry looked down. There was a definite lump beneath his nipple.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt or anything.”

His dad’s expression could have been anger or fear. Henry felt like he had been poked hard in the solar plexus. Had he done something wrong?

The shaving lesson commenced, and the swelling was forgotten. Two days later, Henry’s dad came into his room as he got dressed for school.

“Let me take a look, kiddo,” he said. Henry obediently pulled off the Spiderman shirt he’d just put on. His dad leaned down so their foreheads almost touched. He placed his fingers on the same spot, pressing against the lump. It hurt a little bit, like it was bruised. Then, to Henry’s surprise, his dad raised his other hand and touched the left side of Henry’s chest. “There’s another one,” he said.

Henry’s mom and dad kept him home from school that day. They got his doctor on the phone, and they were able to book an appointment for that afternoon.

The doctor performed a few examinations and blood tests. Henry’s dad explained over and over how he had noticed the problem, that Henry hadn’t mentioned any symptoms other than a little soreness.

The diagnosis made Henry’s toes curl up and his insides squirm: gynecomastia. It was somewhat common for boys going through puberty, the doctor said, and would probably go away in a couple of months when Henry’s hormones started to settle down. In the meantime, he recommended that Henry wear loose shirts at school so the other boys wouldn’t make fun of him.

On the drive home, his parents argued. His father wanted him to have surgery to remove his breast buds. His mother thought it was unnecessary for something that would go away on its own. They didn’t ask Henry what he thought.

He went back to the doctor every three months for a check-up. By the time nine months had passed, Henry was thirteen, and all his shirts were too tight around the chest. His dad bought him some button-downs from the Men’s section at Target, but Henry hated the way they fit his shoulders.

This appointment was different. His mom stayed in the waiting room, engrossed in an old magazine, and he saw the doctor alone.

After the poking and squeezing, Dr. Copeland plopped down on the rolling stool and looked up at Henry, who sat on the exam table, shirtless.

“How are you feeling about things?” the doctor asked.

Henry wanted to say he was depressed. He wanted to say he hated how he looked. He wanted to ask for the surgery his father so desperately thought he needed.

“I love them,” he whispered instead.

Dr. Copeland just looked at him, impassive. Henry wasn’t sure he’d understood.

“I don’t want the surgery,” he said in a stronger voice.

At home, Henry worried. The doctor had spoken to his mom at length before they’d left, and she hadn’t said anything on the way home. He settled in at the dining room table, drawing pictures with colored pencils as she made lunch for the two of them. He loved his doctor days with Mom. He got to skip school, have a special lunch, and watch a movie with her before his dad got home. He never worried about anything on those days.

However, his mom’s tense silence and refusal to meet his eye worried him. What had Dr. Copeland said to her?

Henry cleared away his things as she placed their lunch on the table: mac ‘n’ cheese in superhero shapes, with green ketchup and bacon bits. He was starving.

“Sweetie,” his mom began. She paused so long he stopped eating and looked up. He didn’t understand what emotion was on her face. “Sweetie, the doctor told me the gynecomastia isn’t going away on its own.”

Henry nodded, and his insides began fluttering. He shoveled more food into his mouth, which didn’t help.

“Dad wants us to start thinking about surgery,” she said.

Henry put down his fork. His chest constricted. His vision went blurry. His eyes filled with tears and he could do nothing to stop them from coursing down his face. His mom came around the table and held him.

“Baby, I want to ask you something,” she said. “I don’t want you to be afraid to tell me anything. With all this bathroom stuff in the news lately… Sweetie, do you want to be a girl?”

Henry felt a bolt of shock sizzle through his torso, right between his breasts. He pulled away enough to look at her.

“No, Mom. I’m still a boy.”

She looked almost disappointed. “Well, that’s good, then. Things are very tough for people like that. Why are you crying, then? Are you scared of the surgery?”

How could he explain? It wasn’t that he wanted to be a girl. He liked boy things and his boy body and being treated like a boy. He knew all about trans people from Tumblr, even listed his own pronouns in his profile as a way of showing support for them. He thought he might be bisexual, but he was sure he was a boy.

But he loved his breasts. He loved how they looked under his T-shirts and how his sensitive nipples made the new experience of touching himself so much better. He often stood before the mirror in his room at night, naked, admiring the contrasting beauty of his breasts and what was between his legs. To him, there was no dissonance.

“No,” he said. “I… I like them. They’re a part of me. I don’t want them to go away.”

His mom stopped hugging him, stepping back. “What do you mean, you like them?”

“How can I be any clearer?” he snapped.

They were both shocked. He’d never been so rude to her.

She recovered quickly, narrowing her eyes. “Well, if that’s how you feel, obviously you need to be in some sort of therapy,” she said. “Normal boys don’t want to have breasts. At least if you wanted to be a girl it would make sense. You have to choose one or the other, Henry.”

He cried in his room for hours, dreading the moment his father came home. They would force him to have surgery, and there was nothing he could do about it. He felt like a cricket waiting to be eaten by a snake.

His dad got home at 6:20, as usual. Henry pressed his ear to the crack under his bedroom door, struggling to eavesdrop. He couldn’t glean much, though, and before long he heard his father’s heavy footsteps coming down the hall. Scrambling off the floor, Henry snatched up a stray Percy Jackson book and held it protectively in front of his chest.

His dad knocked and came in. Something brought him up short, and he stared at Henry for a moment before crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe.

“Calm down, kiddo,” he said. “I didn’t bring a butcher knife with me.”

Henry dropped his book-shield on the bed and sat down next to it. His dad came over and knelt in front of him, looking up into his face. He took Henry’s hands.

“Your mom told me what happened,” he said. “She’s upset. Confused. I am, too. I don’t understand anything about what you’re going through.” His face twisted in an alarming way. “I don’t think the way you feel is—right.” Henry tried to pull his hands away, but his dad held on. “But this isn’t a decision for anyone but you to make.”

It took a moment for Henry to understand. “You mean…?”

“You don’t have to have surgery unless you want it,” his dad said. “Mom and I talked things over. You’re going to have to go to therapy to get this figured out, but we agreed. It has to be your choice.” He pulled Henry into a tight hug.

Pressed against his father, chest to chest, Henry knew his decision was already made.

Adrien Kade Sdao writes young adult fiction and works in a children’s bookstore in Los Angeles. They are an MFA candidate at Antioch University, Los Angeles, and they are the lead editor for the Young Adult genre at Lunch Ticket. Their work has appeared in Lunch Ticket and Womanpause. They live in North Hollywood with their cat, Shelly.