“Hey, cheer up Audrey,” I said as I turned onto Main street and into a row of back to back restaurants, all lit up and making my stomach growl.
“Aleah please,” She said. “I just…couldn’t I just stay at home tonight?”

“You’ve been cooped up in your dorm for three days,” I said. “You needed to get out. I’m getting you out.”

“It’s really creepy that you know that,” She said. “Don’t you guys have anything better to do than watch me?”

“Uh…yeah,” I said. “Lots of things. Lots and lots of things but…yeahhhhhh.”

I looked at her from the corner of my eye as the scenery outside flew past; she definitely wasn’t happy. Okay she was pouting like a teenager. Seriously. You know, come to think of it, that was kind of adorable. I took a hard left through an intersection and pulled into a Burger King.

“What are we doing here?” She asked me as I took the car through the drive thru.

“Getting you dinner,” I said.

“I’m not hungry,” She turned and stared out the window.

“You’ve been in your dorm for three days and we know you don’t have food in there,” I told her.

“Okay how do you know I don’t have food in there?” She turned to look at me.

“Because Courtney and Ashley have dropped you off a few times and check your fridge when they walked into the dorm with you, and you never go to the store so…”

“That’s so creepy,” She said.

“Welcome to a world where people care about you,” I shrugged. “It sucks.”

“You don’t have to care that much,” She informed me. “I’m fine.”

“What do you want?” I pointed to the menu.

“I…” She started to say ‘nothing’, but she knew I wouldn’t take that for an answer. “I guess…fries.”

I rolled my window down and spoke to the drive-thru speaker.

“Hey, can I get a number…1 with fries and a large coke?”

“Hey, I don’t need coke, that’s pure suga—” Audrey started to say, but I held a hand up and shushed her.

“Will that be all?” The drive thru attendant asked me.

“Yes please,” I said.

“Alright, please pull around.”

I released the brake and pulled around to the side of the restaurant.

“You’re gonna have to learn, Audrey,” I said as I paid for the food. “When we tell you to eat, you eat. You know, if you ate like a normal person we wouldn’t have to do this.”

“I just don’t…I don’t feel like it,” She shrugged.

“That’s called depression, honey,” I said. “You need to look into that.”

“I’m not depressed.”

“You’re something,” I said, taking the food and driving off. “Now when we get home you’re going to eat this.”

“Home?”

“Well, my home,” I corrected.

We passed the rest of the ride in silence until we reached the house. I pulled around to the parking lot on the side and a few moments later we were standing on the porch beneath the ΓΑΤ sign.

“So…why are we here?” Audrey asked. She was a little confused; it was a Saturday evening and I’d just showed up at her house and dragged her out. Not like she was doing anything other than sitting in her dorm sulking. When I’d walked in, Mason had simply said ‘Oh dear god, please just take him’, so it must have been a fun few days.

“Well Audrey,” I said, walking toward the door and pushing it open. “You’re learning to be a girl, and you’re doing okay so far, but there are some experiences you just haven’t had. Today I’m going to introduce you to one of the oldest traditions we have.”

“What’s that?” She asked nervously as we stepped through the foyer.

“Girl’s night,” I replied.

“Heyyyy Audrey!” Lauren said as we passed into the living room.

“Hey!” Audrey smiled, starting to loosen up. I think I understood her problem; it was the same for me when I first joined the house. I always felt like I didn’t belong here when I walked in, like I was being huge bother, even though I lived here. Audrey wasn’t one of our sisters, but it must have been the same for her, maybe even worse.

“Come on, take your shoes off,” I said to her. “The go eat, I’ll come get you in a minute.”

Maybe I should explain what was going on here. Audrey was born male, very male, well, maybe not that male. She was transgender, a female born in a male body. Up until two weeks ago she’d lived her life as a male, one hundred percent, and to keep up appearances she still did, but we knew her secret. One night, Audrey, in desperation I guess, broke into our house and made her way upstairs to try on some of my clothes. I’d caught her, literally beaten the snot out of her, and tied her up. Yeah, I’m a badass. I thought maybe some life-ruining was in order, but stupid me, I had to go snooping around in her phone and I’d found the transgender forums she was visiting. So now we were helping her. I needed to learn to leave well enough alone.

“Tiffany,” I called out from across the room. She was standing in the kitchen staring off into space. “Hey!”

I walked over and snapped my fingers, she immediately directed her attention to me. Normally she would have been upset at me doing that, but right now she just sort of had this hollow look in her eyes.

“Did you sleep last night?” I asked. She shook her head. “That night before?”

“I’m fine,” She said.

“Right,” I nodded. She wasn’t doing fine. Ever since the other night when we’d helped Audrey come out to her girlfriend, she’d been in a horrible, depressive mood. I didn’t know how much more of it I could take. Yeah, Audrey had lost her girlfriend, but you know what? That just meant one more obstacle out of the way to her becoming her true self. I couldn’t help but remember my friend, Jayne, from what seemed like a lifetime ago. If she’d had fewer obstacles in her way, then maybe she wouldn’t have ended up the way she did. I shuddered at the imagery of how it had all ended, but immediately snapped back into the present. Tiffany was no longer paying attention to me; she was staring at her phone. I tapped my fingernails on the counter and turned away, looking at Audrey who was nibbling on her fries at the table.

“Come on girl!” I called out to her. “Eat that food, we’ve got stuff to do!”

“I’ve got wine!” Courtney announced as she walked through the front door holding two boxes of red wine. You know, the cheap bagged kind that we should have been super ashamed to be drinking.

“Oh awesome!” Isabella said cheerfully as she walked by the table, leaning down and embracing Audrey in a sort of half-hug as she went.
“Did anyone order pizza?” I called out.

“Aren’t you doing that?” Lauren called back from somewhere in the house.

“Audrey!” I shouted. “Are you done yet?”

“Yeah,” She said. I walked over. She’d eaten half the fries.

“Oh my god Audrey,” I rolled my eyes. “How are you even still alive? Get up, we’re going upstairs.”

“Listen to me,” I said to her as I guided her up the stairs with my hand in the small of her back. “I am not your mother, I shouldn’t have to tell you to eat. If you don’t eat, you get sick. I don’t know how you’re not sick already.”

She didn’t answer me, she just kept walking until we reached the bathroom and I guided her in. I pointed to the toilet and told her to take a seat as I grabbed some eyebrow waxing strips from the cabinet.

“This is probably going to hurt,” I told her.

“What is that?” She craned her neck to see.

“We’re fixing your eyebrows,” I said pointedly. “Those things look like caterpillars.”

“Wait, what are you doing?” She asked as I applied one of the strips expertly to her left eyebrow. I raised a finger and shushed her. Then I peeled it off as fast as I could. She screamed.

“What the hell?” She demanded, holding a hand up to her face. “What did you do?!”

“You…wax your body…don’t you?” I asked curiously.

“I don’t do it to my face!” She screamed. “Oh my god that hurt!”

“Is everything okay in here?” Allie, one of our sisters poked her head in.

“Oh, yeah,” I laughed. “Just teaching Audrey here that beauty is pain, and stuff.”

“Oh this is Audrey!” She practically squealed as she barreled into the bathroom. “Wow, I’ve heard like, everything about you!”

“Wow, I’ve heard…nothing about you,” Audrey said, trying to be funny but she just came across as super shy.

“Audrey there are dozens of members, they don’t even all live in the house. You’re not going to know about all of them.”

“Why would you not live at the house?” Audrey was actually curious, I guess.

“Some people like their privacy,” Allie smiled. “I live at the house though.”

“We’re getting bigger, though,” I said. “They’re talking about getting a bigger house for us next year.”

“Just remember to keep the back door locked,” Allie grinned, looking right at Audrey who blushed, remembering her foul-up a few weeks ago.

I looked Allie over, noting her sweat-drenched GAT shirt and leggings.

“You been jogging?” I asked. Allie was a bit of an exercise freak.

“Yeah, six miles today,” She said without any particular emotion. “Going to try to do better tomorrow.”

I nodded and pulled the next strip out of the box. I saw Audrey cringe from the corner of my eye; I suppressed a grin.

“Hey, don’t worry, it’ll be over soon!” Allie reassured her.

“Yeah, then we can move on to makeup,” I said. “You gotta look like a lady for ladies night.”

“She does look like a lady,” Allie complimented. “You see all this hair?”

“Yeah, I see it, total waste on a guy,” I said.

I reached under the counter and pulled out a black makeup bag, it was pretty much full to the brim, all full of things we’d put together for Audrey. It was actually all cheap makeup but we’d been able to work some magic with it, and we figured that she could buy her own someday. It didn’t matter anyway; she couldn’t tell cheap makeup from expensive makeup.

“It’s all in the contouring,” I told her as I brushed it onto her face. “Smoke and mirrors, just giving your face a different shape…”

“Oh let me at that hair!” Allie said, grabbing a flat iron from the counter. It took about half an hour and Audrey sat still through the entire thing. She was used to this by now. By the time we were done you couldn’t even tell that she was biologically male. She had a lot going for her genetically I guess, mostly the face shape. The long hair didn’t hurt either.

“Okay…” I said. “Outfits…you’ve been wearing dresses…a lot, but I think we should try you in some skirts. There’s just more variety.”

I walked over to the hamper where I’d laid out a black skirt and a green top with a criss-cross neckline.

“Time to get cute, my dear,” I smiled at her as she put on her bra with the silicone forms we’d gotten her, and finally, the rest of the outfit. “That looks adorable.”

“Really yummy actually,” I looked up and Allison was staring at her like a piece of meat.

“Holy crap, Allie,” I said. “She just got dumped, I don’t think she’s ready to date.”

“Who said anything about date?”

“Come on Audrey,” I said, taking her hand and guiding her out of the bathroom. “Let’s get downstairs.”

Allie followed us downstairs and I looked around.

“Did like, anyone order that pizza?” I asked again. No one answered. “Uh..Lauren? Isabella? Tiffany? Courtney? Tell me someone ordered a pizza.”

“Sorry, I got the wine,” Courtney said as she pointed to the boxed wine sitting over by Tiffany in the kitchen. Tiffany was still engrossed in her phone.

“I’ve got it,” Isabella said, taking the list off the counter and pulling out her phone.

“Audrey,” I said, turning my attention to her. “Come over here, let me get a few pictures of you.”

“What for?” She asked cautiously.

“For you to look at later, silly,” I laughed. I had her stand next to the stairs and take a few poses while I snapped some pictures. I immediately sent them to her phone.

“Okay, SO!” Lauren said, walking over and resting a hand on Audrey’s shoulder. “Girls’ night! It’s probably your first one, so basically we just sit around, drink wine, and gossip.”

“Well we did watch a movie last time,” I pointed out.

“Yeah but who cares about movies?” Lauren laughed. “I want to hear more about what Audrey’s been up to!”

She pulled Audrey over to the couch and was immediately joined by the other sisters in the room. Tiffany finally stepped out from behind the counter and stood behind the couch instead. She probably didn’t want to sit down and doze off; she despised sleeping in public spaces. I guess she didn’t want anyone to see what she looked like when she was asleep; had to keep up appearances I guess.

“So what have you been up to, Audrey?” Isabella asked, trying to sound casual. This wasn’t really a show of interest I don’t think. It was more about them trying to figure out if Audrey was actually okay after we’d wrecked her relationship. A few days ago, maybe more, we’d helped her come out to her girlfriend and it hadn’t gone well. The guilt was real, at least for them. To me it felt more like a step in the right direction.

“Well, I mean…just…playing games,” Audrey shrugged. She was mad at us. I could see it. She was concealing it really well, but you know what? It was there. Could anyone really blame her?

“Are you still stuck on that Pantheon thing?” I asked kind of smugly.

“Yeah,” Audrey smiled. “I play it with Mason a lot.”

“Okay!” Allison clapped her hands. “Let’s get the wine going, it’s WAY too dry in here!”

“Audrey,” I said, walking closer to her as she sat on the couch. “What do you plan to do from here?”

“What do you mean?” She looked up at me.

“I mean…are you going to transition?”

She stared at me blankly.

“Okay,” I said. “There are…a lot of steps to take, like hormone therapy and maybe even coming out?”

“I…I can’t do that,” She shook her head. “You know there’s still Mason…and my parents…”

I nodded. I wanted to tell her that she shouldn’t just put off her own happiness for other people but we’d pushed her enough already.

“Okay, Audrey,” I said. “But I want you to know that we’re here for you if you do decide to go forward. I mean, we do care about you, even if it doesn’t seem like it sometimes, okay?”

Lauren and Isabella nodded as Allie passed wine glasses around. Just as we were about to start drinking, the front door burst open, loudly, and Olivia rushed into the living room covered from head to toe in some kind of sticky black substance. I cringed; her outfit was ruined. Tiffany simply looked up from her phone uninterested, like she was expecting this.

“It’s Tri-Pi!” She spat. “They did it again!”