Rhapsody: Butterfly in A Box (Volume One) Chapter 3/15 By Tara Nicole Miller Copyright © 2025 Tara Nicole Miller All Rights Reserved. Word Count 5,000

Previously in Rhapsody: A Butterfly in a Box

Sage’s story begins with the "opening of the wardrobe" during a family trip to the Grand Canyon and Sedona, where a profound psychic reading acts as a wrecking ball to the traditional blueprints of her father’s world. Guided by the "shamanic wisdom" of Brooke and the fierce, alchemical love of her mother, Stephanie, six-year-old Sage begins the transition from a "stuck caterpillar" into the girl she has always been on the inside. We witnessed her first courageous steps into the world as herself: the monumental victory of wearing a pink Manning jersey at a Broncos game, and, through a fortuitous mishap, a new friend's pretty romper.

And now...

True Colors

But I see your true colors
shining through.
I see your true colors,
and that's why I love you.
~ Cyndi Lauper, True Colors

Mom has always been a storyteller. She and Dad have their own love story—two kids from very different upbringings who met at CU, she with her MFA in literature and he with his master’s in architecture. They weren’t old money, but they were smart money. Dad’s parents sold off a thousand acres of Kansas farmland, turning a legacy of dirt and hard work into a fortune, a new kind of foundation for him to build a construction empire upon. He’s 6'2", with brown hair and designer stubble, a handsome man who builds buildings. Mom is a pretty blonde, 5'7", who owns a bookstore and builds stories. Her parents couldn’t be more different from Daddy’s, being Hollywood producers, promoting a long line of liberal causes.

I was maybe four when I started telling them what I needed. But before that, my feelings were just big, wild things, and my parents had to guess what they meant. One of my first “Sage Stories” was from preschool. The one where I had to be a boy.

The preschool was a happy-looking place with brightly colored walls and finger paintings hanging everywhere, but I remember it as the place where I first learned what it felt like to be a question mark. My teacher, Mrs. Gable, was very sweet, with a big smile and a name tag shaped like a teddy bear. One day, she divided the class. "All the boys go to the block corner," she said, her voice a little too cheerful. "And all the girls go to the kitchen."

I froze. The boys were already on the floor, their hands making a frantic, clattering noise as they started to build a fort. The girls were giggling, putting tiny plastic plates on a tiny plastic table. My body felt like it was betraying me. I wasn’t a fort. I wasn’t a kitchen. I was just me. Standing alone, with my little brown stuffed bunny.

Mrs. Gable came over to me. "What's wrong, Sage?" she asked, her voice soft but a little insistent. "Go play with the other boys."
I just shook my head. "I can't," I whispered.

"Honey, of course you can," she said. She tried to gently nudge me toward the boys, but I just sat down right there in the middle of the floor, a tiny island in a sea of linoleum. I didn’t cry. I didn't make a fuss. I just sat there, a little stone. I couldn't be a boy. And it seemed I couldn't be a girl. I was just... stuck.

Mom got to the preschool to pick me up and found me still in the same spot, a little boy in the corner, with a face full of tears. She didn't scold me. She just knelt down, her blonde hair falling around her face like a curtain. Her hands, soft from handling books all day, went to my cheeks, and she looked right into my eyes.

"What can't you do, honey?" she whispered, and her voice was a lifeline.

I swallowed hard. The words felt too big to say out loud, but they were even bigger to keep inside. "I can't be a boy," I said.

And Mom, my beautiful, smart-as-a-whip-and-crazy-as-a-fox mom, didn't even blink. She just took me into her arms and hugged me so tight I thought I might turn into a pancake.

"Then you don't have to," she said. "You don't have to."

I guess that was my first lesson in wisdom. It came not from a book, but from a hug. And that was all I needed to learn to bend the rules of the world a little, to find a way to make it right for me.

The Deep End - Back to School

“I'm off the deep end,
watch as I dive in,
I'll never meet the ground.”

~Lady Gaga, Shallow

The previous day had been a whirlwind of meetings. The Monday after we got back from Phoenix. Mom, armed with a letter from a gender-affirming therapist—a wonderful woman named Dr. Evans, who had agreed to fit us in after hours—had met with the principal and My teacher, Mrs. Davies. The conversation wasn't easy apparently, but the school, guided by policies and a seemingly genuine desire to do the right thing, had agreed to support my transition, such as it was. Like I said, I wasn’t all that much of a boy to begin with. I’m not sure anyone really noticed me anyway. Anyway, today, the plan was in action.

Mom walked me to the classroom door. I wore a simple, beautiful floral dress (which we bought last night after our meeting with Dr. Evans) and shiny black Mary Janes. My hair was pulled into two neat pigtails, a style that felt more "me" than anything before. I had looked at myself in the mirror a long time that morning. I smiled a lot, too. Now, standing at the classroom door, I was super nervous, my hand clammy in my mom's. I felt like Matilda entering Crunchem Hall for gosh sakes! Except for the superpower bit, of course.

"Remember what we talked about, sweet pea?" Mom whispered. "You are Sage. And you are a girl. They're going to treat you like a girl, and they're going to use 'she' and 'her.' Okay?"

I nodded, taking a deep breath. I didn't want to look back as I went in, but I did, quickly, and saw mom smile. I relaxed just the smallest amount. The morning was a blur of introductions and lessons. Mrs. Davies was a master of subtle inclusion. When she lined us up to go outside, she simply said, "Girls, line up on the right. Boys, on the left." I hesitated this time. I usually just went for the girl line before being shooed over to the boys, but this time felt different. Then I saw Mrs. Davies's encouraging smile. I took my place on the right, my heart pounding. Why was today so different? No one said a word. When it was time for a restroom break, Mrs. Davies pointed to the girls’ restroom door. I used it without issue, a small but monumental victory. BTW, I like the girls’ restroom way better than the boys! Better people, too, giggle.

The true test came at lunchtime. I sat at a table, one of those small cartons of 2% milk in front of me. I was carefully unwrapping my sandwich when a girl named Olivia, with bouncy red curls, slid into the seat across from me. I held my breath.
"I like your dress." Olivia chirped.

Somewhat surprised, I looked up. "Oh. Thanks! My mom helped me pick it out!" I said with a smile and not a little pride.
"I'm Olivia.” She said, unnecessarily. “Do you like my shoes? They have glitter on them, see?" Olivia held up her foot, her sparkly shoes a vibrant contrast to my simple ones. But I liked them both. A lot. I need to ask Mommy for more shoes!

"They're really pretty. I'm Sage." I gave her a little girly wave.

A few other girls, drawn by the conversation, drifted over. One girl, named Chloe, pointed to my pigtails.

Chloe asked, "Why do you have two ponytails?"

"My mom calls them pigtails." I informed her.

Chloe leaned in and sotto voce said, "You used to be a boy, right? Pretty sure I saw you on the first day of school. You even wore a tie, I think." She giggled.

The air at the table went still. I felt an unfamiliar panic. I looked down at my milk carton, then my sparkly pink nails that usually make me so happy. But I was suddenly unable to meet Chloe's gaze. God, my mom made me wear that stupid tie first day! What a nightmare.
Olivia scoffed, "So? She's a girl now. The teacher said so. Mrs. Davies said sometimes people are born a little mixed up and they just have to find their way to being the real them."

Chloe just said, "Oh," and shrugged, a simple, childlike acceptance of the new information. "Do you want to trade your chips for my cookies?" She wasn’t one to long dwell on the unimportant apparently. I giggled and finally released the tension that had been building to a crescendo.
The rest of lunch was about exchanging snacks, comparing lunchboxes (mine was Elsa from Frozen)[9], and planning who would get on the swings at recess. The boys at their own table across the way seemed totally oblivious, lost in a discussion about superheroes and video games or some such. They didn't seem to notice or care about my new appearance; I was just one more kid in the sea of children to them. One more stupid girl. Fine by me. Silly boys!

As I walked out to the playground, a chocolate chip cookie in my hand, I knew it wouldn't always be this easy. I really did. I somehow knew I was in for some rough weather ahead. But today, the world hadn’t ended. The ground hadn’t opened up. The sky hadn’t fallen. I was just a girl, on a playground, on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon. And that was all I needed.

A Madeleine for Caleb

"Me want cookie! Me want cookie! Me...want...cookie!"
~ Cookie Monster

It was recess, and the playground was a chaotic symphony of shouting and running and the squeak of swings. The afternoon sun was warm, but a crisp September wind made the air feel new and clean. I had a cookie in my hand, a small, round thing with a chocolate chip smile, a leftover from the batch my mom and I had made. It felt like a little piece of sunshine.
I wasn't playing. I was standing by the chain-link fence, watching everyone else. I was still feeling that invisible barrier, and I felt a million miles away from the kids playing kickball and hopscotch.

And then I saw Caleb.

I knew who he was, of course. And he knew me, you know, before I was me. He was a bully. And he was the boy who had looked at my pretty floral dress, and my shiny mary janes, this very morning, my first girl morning, and said, in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “Look, it’s a boy in a dress!” My heart, which had been so full of hope, had shrunk a little at that moment. But now, he was sitting on a swing all by himself, his head down, drawing with a stick in the dirt. He didn't seem to have any friends at all.

I felt a sudden, powerful need to talk to him. I grabbed tightly onto the chain-link fence and tried mightily to talk myself out of it, but I couldn’t seem to do it. So, I sighed and lifted my head high. I walked over to the swing set, putting a little extra swish into my skirt. My feet made soft crunching sounds on the gravel, then I stopped in front of him and just held out the cookie.

He looked up, his eyes wide with surprise. He didn't seem to recognize me at first. "What's that?" he asked, his voice a soft little whisper.
"It's a cookie, silly," I said. "My mom and I made it. We have tons."

He didn't take it. He just looked at me, a little confused. The memory of his cold words hung in the air between us. His face, which was a mess of warm brown threads and a smudge of dirt, was suddenly all a-squish with a kind of suspicion. He just stared at me, his one eyebrow raised.
I didn't say anything. I just kept holding the cookie out. He finally looked down at the cookie, then back up at me. He didn't say thank you. He didn’t say anything. He just snatched it from my hand, shoved it into his pocket, and went back to drawing in the dirt. He didn't take a bite. He didn't even look at it. He just put it away, as if it were a secret he didn't want anyone to know about.

I walked back to the fence, and in that moment, I realized that I wasn't lonely anymore. I glanced back at the swings, and I saw him. Caleb had taken the cookie out of his pocket, and he was taking a bite, his back to me, his body hunched over, as if it were the most important secret in the world. A small, quiet smile came to my face.

It was so cool. I had given him a cookie, and he didn't say thank you, and he didn't even look at it, but he ate it anyway. He was like a little bird that you give a piece of bread to, and it just snatches it and flies away, and you don't even know if it's going to eat it. But it does.
I didn't need him to thank me. I didn't need him to be my friend, not really, although one can never have too many friends, can one? No, I just needed to know that my cookie, my little piece of sunshine, had found its own way.

Butterflies are Free

"I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.”

~ Charles Dickens, Bleak House

My first sleepover felt like a monumental event. It was just a couple weeks later. Olivia and I were quickly becoming fast friends. Mom was stood by the car, watching over me from a distance. I stood on the front step of Olivia’s house and clutched my pink backpack, which contained not only my pajamas and toothbrush and my harp seal plushie, but also a small, worn Denver Broncos lanyard—a relic from my so-called "boy" life. Dad was always buying me boy stuff and it usually ended up in the back of the closet. I fished it out of the depths and brought it with me for some strange reason. I had tucked it deep into a side pocket, a tiny secret I wasn't sure what to do with.

Olivia's house was a whirlwind of energy and her room was a jungle of stuffed animals, fairy lights, and colorful blankets. It was lovely, just the way I always wished my room could be. My room was never very boy, but it was most certainly not as girly as I would have liked. I had to fight for any little thing that was the least girly. Anyway, Olivia, Chloe, Lily, and I spread our sleeping bags out on the floor. We played the board games Gnomes at Night and Team Digger (both super fun!); we told ghost stories in the dark with a flashlight (Olivia’s was really really scary - I almost peed my pants!), and then, inevitably, someone suggested "truth or dare." We were just little, but everything seemed so grown up all of a sudden.

The first few rounds were silly. "Dare Sage to eat a spoonful of hot sauce!" (I refused to do it, and everyone booed and giggled.) "Truth: What’s the grossest thing you've ever eaten?" (Lily confessed to eating a bug.) Then, it was Chloe’s turn. She looked straight at me, her face serious in the dim light.

"Truth," Chloe said. "Is it true you used to be a boy?"

The room went silent. The flashlight beam, held by Olivia, wavered. I felt a now-familiar wave of panic, hot and cold at the same time. The air seemed to thicken like mom’s pea soup. I thought they already knew? I guess I could lie, or I could change the subject. But I looked at Olivia's steady gaze, and then at Chloe, who just seemed genuinely curious. Maybe she hadn’t believed it the first day when the truth came out. Or maybe…

"Yeah," I said, my voice small but clear. "I was. Kinda, I guess. Only on the outside, though. Inside, I’ve always been a girl. It's like... imagine if you were a beautiful butterfly, but for a long time, you had to be a caterpillar."

Chloe was quiet for a moment, her brow furrowed in thought. "So you were just a girl who was stuck?"

"Yeah," I said, feeling a surge of relief. "Exactly."

Lily piped up from her sleeping bag. "Did it hurt? To get unstuck?"

"Sometimes," I admitted. "But it feels so good now." I found myself pulling the Broncos lanyard out of my pocket and holding it up. "This was from when I was a caterpillar. I keep it so I don't forget where I came from."

Olivia reached out and gently touched the lanyard. "It's cool," she said. "You're like a superhero with a secret identity. Supergirl!"
My heart soared. Olivia and Chloe nodded in agreement, their curiosity replaced with a simple, childlike understanding. The moment passed, and we moved on to the next dare, but something fundamental had shifted. I wasn't just a girl to them; I was a girl with a story, and I was no longer alone in carrying it. The secret, such as it was, it turned out, wasn't a burden to be hidden, but a truth that could maybe set me free.

The next morning, after a yummy breakfast, mom came to pick me up. "You ready to go, sweet pea?" Mom asked, zipping up my bag.

"Yeah," I said, full of chocolate chip pancakes and a little sleepy but feeling light all over. Once we were outside, I spoke, "Mom?"

"Yes, honey?" she said, her hands still on my backpack.

"I told them. About me."

Mom froze. She looked at me, her eyes wide, waiting. "Oh. Okay. What... what did you say?"

"I told them I used to be kind of a boy on the outside, but I was always a girl inside," I explained, feeling a little braver now that it was out in the open. "Like a butterfly who was stuck being a caterpillar."

A slow smile spread across Mom's face, and her eyes got all shiny. "And what did they say?"

I shrugged, trying to sound like it was no big deal. "Olivia said I was like a superhero with a secret identity." I paused, then my voice got quiet. "Chloe didn't make fun of me. And Lily just wanted to know if it hurt. I told her ‘sometimes,’ but that it feels good now."

Mom knelt down and pulled me into a fierce hug. I could feel her shaking a little. "Oh, honey. That's... that's the bravest thing you've ever done. I am so, so proud of you."

"Why?" I asked, pulling back just enough to look at her face.

"Because you were honest. And you let them see the real you," she said, her voice a little shaky. "That's what being a warrior is all about.”

“A warrior-princess?” I asked.

"Of course, a warrior princess. You didn't just stand up for yourself; you helped them understand. You changed their world, just a little."

I smiled, a huge, genuine smile that made my face feel all warm. I reached down and touched the Broncos lanyard in my pocket, no longer an embarrassing secret, but more of a trophy, signifying what I’d overcome. "You know, it wasn't so scary after all." Well, it really was at the time, duh!

Mom wrote about this following scene in her journal. Apparently it happened the evening after my very first sleepover. Here’s how I imagine it going:

"Hey," Stephanie said, her voice soft as she came into the living room and saw Michael staring out the window, a beer untouched on the coffee table. The TV was on, a sports talk show muttering in the background, but he wasn't watching. "You're a million miles away."
Michael sighed and ran a hand over his face. "Just... thinking about everything. Sage. The sleepover. The way she just told them."
Stephanie sat on the couch, her hand resting on his knee. "She was so brave."

"You don't have to be ready," she whispered, her voice a comforting balm. "You just have to be willing."

My Atticus

"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself."

~ Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

I thank the Goddess that my mom keeps a journal. Well, we all do since our first session with my gender therapist. My mom also loves to tell stories, especially the "Sage Stories," as she calls them. They're all about my journey - our journey - and the funny, beautiful, and sometimes sad things that happened. But this one, she reminded me of just recently, as we were discussing my memoir assignment. I’m now old enough to understand that some of the hardest parts for me were also the hardest for my parents. Here’s how it went:

"Mom," I asked her one afternoon not long after the sleepover, "what did you and Dad talk about that night after the sleepover? He was on the phone, and he just seemed so sad."

She looked at me, a soft smile on her face. "That was the night your dad called your grandpa."

"He did?" I asked, a knot forming in my stomach. I knew how my grandpa felt about a lot of things. He was a man who lived by rules. And strict rules, at that.

"He did," she said, her voice dropping. "I was in the living room, and your dad was in the kitchen. I couldn't hear everything, but I could hear his voice. He was so brave, honey. He told your grandpa that you were a girl, that you'd always been a girl, and that we were going to support you."

I watched her face, searching for a clue as to how it went. "What did Grandpa say?"

"Well," she said, her smile fading a little. "He didn't take it very well. He said it was 'unnatural' and that your dad should 'set you straight.'" Well, that was brutally honest!

A chill ran down my spine. The words felt like a punch then and they still do, even hearing them years later.
"And then?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

"And then your dad did the bravest thing I've ever seen him do. He told your grandpa, 'My job is to protect her, not to force her to be something she isn't.' He hung up the phone. Just like that."

I was quiet for a moment, thinking about my dad. The man who taught me to love the Broncos, but who was now fighting for me. He was a warrior after all, just like Brooke said. Not with a sword, but with his voice and his heart.

"So, he wasn't sad because of me," I said, a new understanding dawning on me. "He was sad because he was protecting me? From his own dad?"

"Exactly," she said, her eyes shining. "He chose you. He chose us. He chose love over everything else. And honey," she said, pulling me into a hug. "That's a story you never forget."

So, one night when he was driving me to ballet class, I prodded my dad to tell me his version, and I’ve heard him tell it a few more times since then. My dad never tells this story without getting a little choked up. He says it's one of the most important moments of his life, but he can't remember the words. "It was like a movie, sweet pea," he always says. He doesn't have to remember all the words. I think he’s covered them all over all the versions I’ve heard. I've also heard it from my mom's journal, and from his quiet gestures, and from the love he shows me every day. But if I were to write it down, if I were to be that camera in the corner of the kitchen, it would go something like this (I’m calling dad Michael, otherwise it would get really confusing):

The phone rang just as Michael was putting the last of the dinner dishes into the dishwasher. It was his father, a man who believed a man’s problems should be kept to himself, unless they could be solved with a firm handshake and a good-quality tool.

“Hey, Dad,” Michael said, trying to keep his voice light.

“Michael. Just checking in. Heard from your mother you all had a good trip to Arizona.” His father's voice was a low rumble, the kind that reminded Michael of the engine of an old pickup truck.

“We did. Yeah. Good game.” Michael’s hand tightened around the phone. He knew he had to say it. He had been planning it all day. "Dad, listen. I… I wanted to talk to you about Sage.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line, the kind that stretched and crackled with unspoken tension. “What about him?” his father asked. The word “him” was a small, sharp knife.

Michael took a deep breath. “Her. Her name is Sage, and she’s a girl, Dad. She’s... she’s always been a girl.”

Another silence. Michael could almost hear his father's mind working, processing the words, trying to make them fit into a box they were never meant for.

“What in the blazes are you talking about, son? He’s my grandson. I should know whether he’s a boy or a girl. What is this, he going through some kind of weird phase?” The low rumble of his father’s voice had turned into a hard, metallic edge, like an engine fixing to throw a rod.

“No, Dad. It’s not a phase. This is who she is. And… and we’re going to support her. We went to a therapist. We talked to her school. She’s going to be recognized as a girl, and she’s going to live her life as a girl. We… we’re going to be with her every step of the way.” Michael’s voice shook, but he held firm.

His father let out a long, slow exhale, a sound of profound disappointment. “This is… this is unnatural, Michael, and you know it! You can’t just… you can’t just let a child decide these things. You’re the father. You’re supposed to set him straight.”

Michael closed his eyes. This was the moment. The "false self" he had so carefully built, the one that had always sought his father’s approval, was being tested. “No, Dad. My job is to protect her. Not to force her to be something she isn’t. You taught me to be strong and do what is right. Well, this is me being strong. I’m doing what’s right for my daughter.”

The line went dead. Michael stared at the phone, a small, black object in his hand, reflecting his sad face. He hadn’t convinced his father. He hadn’t gotten the validation he had craved his whole life. But as he hung up, a strange and quiet peace settled over him. He was a man without a plan, a warrior without a playbook. And for the first time, that felt exactly right somehow.

To be continued...

If you love Sage's journey, you’ll love her soundtrack. Tara is also a songwriter and producer of high-energy, anthemic pop for trans women and anyone who embraces their own 'X-Factor.'

Her latest lyric video, Extra (The X-Factor), is a shimmering, feel-good celebration of transgender joy.

Warning: This song contains traces of glitter and high-octane earworms.

Check out the video here: Extra (The X-Factor). Don't forget to "Like" it, even if you only love it!

Explore the rest of the garden on her YouTube channel: Tara Nicole Miller on YouTube

If this song or Sage’s journey touched your heart today, please consider heading over to YouTube and giving the video a 'Like.' It’s a small click for you, but it’s a huge signal to the 'machine' that our voices matter and our stories deserve to be heard.