Françoise's voice trembles as the words come forth. She is terrified, realising that her poem holds intimate details about herself and that the trust that propels her to recite it is only a few hours old. Fearful of being discovered she is at the same time urging her listener to seek out the truth, to accept the revelation woven into her verse. The final word fades into silence and Françoise looks up slowly and leans back with both relief and apprehension. Angelisa reaches for her hand again and holds it reassuringly.
      "I know," she says, gesturing to the window with a gentle move of her head.
      Confusion takes over in Françoise's mind, as she tries to interpret Angelisa's response. Her eyes lock on to the letters on the window, identifying them one by one until she reads to herself: F R A N Ç O I S.
      "It's alright, Francois, I know. You don't have to be scared."
      François is motionless processing Angelisa's words, until slowly he turns to face her. The only sensation he feels is her hands upon his, enclosing and comforting him, and an uneasy sense of disbelief that is swimming undirected in his head.
      "I watched you many times at the bookstore," says Angelisa. "I could feel your female soul as you read so intently the different books on the shelf. I wasn't scared that you were dressed as a woman even though the others almost ran when they saw you coming."
      Listening wide-eyed to her words, François recalls his visits to the bookstore. He managed to block out the rest of the world so effectively as soon as he opened a book, that he barely noticed anything else. It didn't really matter whose poetry he was reading, merely that he could connect with the voice of someone else's soul through the words on the page. This gave him strength to acknowledge his own soul and to feel comfortable playing the role he felt he needed to, deep in his heart. He begins to relax, to soften his vision and break a smile as words come forth from his mouth. He recounts his difficult childhood, of feeling pressured to behave as his father dictated. He would sneak into his mother's closet before she came home from work and would try on her clothes, feeling liberation and contentment when he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. When his father caught him, things turned ugly. He was never physically hurt but the ensuing arguments and ultimate rejection by his parents mortified him and sent him into a depression. They moved away a year later, on his eighteenth birthday, leaving him the cabin to live in as a token of the love they could longer give.
      "The worst part," he says as he emotions take hold, "is that they completely misunderstood. They thought that dressing up as a woman automatically meant that you are gay. That was too much for them."