“Audrey?” Aleah gently shook nudged her shoulder. While we’d been downstairs, she’d fallen asleep on the bed, her head buried in Lauren’s lap. “Wake up sweetie.”

She opened her eyes slowly, rolling them to look up at Aleah. She remained silent until Aleah finally spoke again.

“You’re staying here tonight,” Aleah said finally. “We don’t…usually allow that sort of thing, but...we don’t want you to leave…like this, okay? You’re staying here. I need you to get up though so you can change.”

She sat up but she didn’t speak. I watched her as she changed into a pair of Aleah’s pajamas. She seemed so fragile, much more so than before. I was having trouble processing it; I mean yeah, she was pretty easygoing, but at least she had a personality before. Now I felt like I was looking at the empty shell of a person. She was shattered, defeated, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

“Okay, just climb under the covers, okay?” Isabella covered her up. Still, not a peep from her.

“Okay, if you need us we’ll be downstairs, okay?” Aleah reassured her, but she might as well have been talking to a wall. It was still early, so this room was relatively empty, but it actually had ten beds, just like the other four bedrooms. I saw Aleah pull out her phone and send out a group text, warning them that Audrey would be there tonight. At least she had her bases covered.

We walked downstairs in silence and took a seat on the sectional couch.

“Oh my god,” Aleah spoke first. “What the hell did we just do?”

“We just broke her,” Lauren said. “We broke Audrey.”

“So, what do you plan to do now?” Amelie asked. She seemed to be keeping her distance from the situation.

“Damage control,” I said. “We have to make sure we don’t hurt her any more than we already have.”

“You seem to care a whole lot all of a sudden,” Isabella observed.

“I care about the house, and my scholarship,” I told her. I was lying. “Both of which could be gone if this got out.”

“You know,” Lauren said. “What we did wasn’t technically against any rules.”

“It just wouldn’t look good,” Aleah said, and Amelie nodded. Even if it didn’t hurt our chapter’s standing with the sorority, it would kill our reputation on campus. I know Aleah cared about Audrey, but I swear the rest of us were just doing this to keep our reputations intact. That wasn’t immoral, right?

“Okay, so I have a question,” Isabella said. “This is going to sound really, really stupid but-“

“No question that ever started that way ends well,” Aleah glanced at her as the words came out of her mouth.

“Okay, but seriously,” She said. “I get that Audrey wants to be a girl but…if it’s causing so many problems, then why can’t she just…be a boy?”

“Oh god, if it were that simple,” Lauren sighed.

“Isn’t it that simple?” Isabella looked at all of us. “I mean…wear pants and drink beer and…I don’t know, be a lumberjack or something?”
I snorted. That was kind of funny, admittedly.

“You know,” I said. “Everyone here knows I’m not the most sympathetic person. Like, well…but this is a real thing. How do I explain this? If a person doesn’t identify with their birth gender it starts to like…get to them…I guess. Like I’ve met a lot of trans people, before and after. I was really skeptical about it at first, and I don’t really understand it but I can tell you they’re happier after they put the clothes on and start acting like the gender they think they are.”

“More like the gender they know they are,” Aleah stared at me.

“Whatever it is,” I rolled my eyes. “People deserve to live however they want as long as it’s not hurting anyone.”

“Okay, so…tell me this…how do we know Audrey is actually…trans and not just going along with what we want?” Isabella looked at each of us again with a serious look on her face.

“There were the forum posts on her phone,” Aleah pointed out. I had a brief flashback to that moment a week ago. After we’d caught her in our room, we’d tied her up and taken like, fifty pictures of her in Aleah’s dress. Then, with her phone, we’d been planning to send the pictures to all of her contacts, including her parents. Just before we’d started that, Aleah accidentally tapped the ‘browser’ button on that shitty phone screen and the Transgender Hope forum had popped right up. Audrey had made literally thousands of posts and comments. To me, that didn’t really mitigate the fact that she’d broken into our house, but you know what? Everyone deserves to be happy.

“And, also,” Lauren said pointedly. “Audrey did literally everything we asked without really complaining. We made her work a party, in a dress. We’ve had her dress as herself every time she’s come over here, and she’s never thrown a fit. Do you think a man who is…a man would let us do that?”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “Try doing that to one of the DEM brothers and see how they react.”

“What about the pictures?” Lauren said, still half-convinced she was right. “Like, could she think she’s being blackmailed.”

“I deleted the pictures from the first night,” Aleah shook her head. “And I made sure to tell her that I did.”

“She’s here of her own free will,” I said. “She could walk out the front door right now and no one would stop her.”

“Yep,” That was all Aleah had to add.

“So then…what do we do?” Isabella asked.

“About?”

“About…Audrey?”

“Well, we messed up,” I said. “We pushed her into something she wasn’t ready for. I think we just keep supporting her. One day she’ll be ready to come out, to everyone, and that’ll be cool, but until then…”

“We just keep playing dress up with her?” Isabella raised an eyebrow.

“Well just think of it this way,” I said. “We help her transition, and when she finally comes out, we could have her pledge to Gamma. Suddenly we’re the most progressive sorority on campus.”

“You’re literally talking about using her,” Aleah stared at me.

“You wanted her in, remember?”

“Not like that!”

“I don’t think she’s going to care either way,” Lauren said. She was probably right.

“Let’s just get some sleep,” I said. “I have to study tomorrow and Audrey has to…do whatever it is Audrey does when we’re not ruining her life.”

We all dispersed and went to our rooms upstairs. I laid down in my bed and stared at Audrey, sleeping across the room. Slowly, and quietly, I wrapped my arms around my pillow and buried my face in the soft fabric, quietly sobbing to myself and hoping to god no one else could hear me. I hated myself so much, and this was only the beginning.