Searching For Jenna novel Chapter 47

Elliot took her hands again. "I know and I miss you, but we're not the same people we were in high school. We wouldn't be even if none of this would have happened. Who knows, we might have gotten to college and met new people and broken up. It's hard to say."

"I can't imagine that happening, but you're right, we are definitely different people now," Cara said.

"I know your feelings for me are very different now," Elliot said. "But I hope we can be friends."

Cara squeezed his hands hard. "Can't you just go back to being Jenna?"

Elliot shook his head sadly. "No, Cara, I can't. It's more than just taking testosterone and changing clothes. I am a man from the depths of my soul. Granted my body still says otherwise, but my mind, heart and soul are all man. I can never go back to being a woman."

Letting go of his hands, Cara sat back and studied him. "Are you going to have the surgeries?"

"Not the bottom. It's extremely expensive and ineffective from my understanding. Plus the risks and complications are just not worth the costs. The top surgery I'm torn about. I had naturally small breasts to start with, they have shrunk with the testosterone usage and weight lifting." Elliot blushed. "I don't know if you were paying attention when I flashed my father, but you can tell that they are a woman's breasts so I can't go shirtless, but they don't stick out far either."

"What was that vest thing you had on?" Cara asked, remembering clearly Elliot exposing himself that day in the woods.

"It's a binder. It's made specifically for binding a transgender man's chest, although a lot of men with man boobs use them too," Elliot explained.

"That makes sense," Cara said.

"There you two are," Caroline said. "Darlene was worried you two were having a big fight somewhere."

"No, just talking," Cara said.

"And?" Caroline asked.

Cara looked at Elliot and smiled. "I think we're going to be friends."

"Good," Caroline said.

Elliot stood. "I better get back upstairs before they eat all my chicken."

"Yeah, I had to leave or I was going to eat it," Caroline confessed. "It smelled so good. I think that's where we're going now."

Cara looked at her mom in confusion. "Where?"

"KFC!" Caroline said.

"Oh, yeah, that does sound good," Cara said.

Elliot pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket. "Let me give you my new cell number," Elliot said to Cara. "You can call me anytime you're ready."

"Okay," Cara said and dug her cell phone out of her purse. She didn't offer to give him her number, but Elliot understood.

"Has he mellowed any?" Elliot asked.

"No, I think he's worse since you left. You were probably his most promising under study," Alonzo said.

"Of course I was," Elliot laughed and then put his arm around his mother. "Alonzo, this is my mom, Darlene and her fiance? Terry."

"I thought your parents were dead," Alonzo said.

"It's a long story," Elliot said. "We have reservations under Cross."

Alonzo seated the three of them, and Elliot put in an order for an appetizer sampler. After Alonzo had walked away, Elliot told Darlene and Terry, "My parents being dead was part of the back story for who I was here. This being so close to Cincinnati, the FBI couldn't be positive that members of the Cobra Cartel were not working out of Maysville."

"That must have been so hard to keep up with all the lies," Darlene said.

"It was at first, but I practiced the story so much that it became second nature. It was actually kind of cool to be a new person that no one knows," Elliot said.

"I'd love to do that," Darlene said. "Everywhere I go in Evansville I get questions about Michael and if I knew what was going on. If I don't get questioned, I can feel people staring at me."

Terry took Darlene's hands and kissed her knuckles. "I'm sorry you have to deal with that, Babe."

Elliot smiled at the warm affection his soon to be stepfather exhibited towards his mother. He was so happy she found someone who was giving her all the love she deserved.