“Do you two need a minute?” Michelle asked, a smirk forming on the corners of her mouth as they stood there with the two uniformed police officers.

“Yes,” I said, as I turned back Remy. She shook her head and literally pushed me off of her with both hands; I grunted as I fell to the floor.

“I am SO sorry,” She said, addressing the officers as she stood and straightened the wrinkles out of her top. I grabbed the edge of the bed and clambered to my feet, doing the same with my skirt and trying my best to act as if nothing had happened. “Did…anyone fill you guys in on what happened?”

“Yeah,” One of the officers said. “So, from what we understand, this young lady showed up at your door and told you that she came from Camp Chippenwood. As far as we know it’s just a summer camp but we do need to take a report and possibly open up an investigation.”

“Wait, an investigation?” I said, a bit of panic and anger seeping into my tone. “Why don’t you just shut it down? Did you see the bruises?”

“Ma’am,” The second officer said. “We need to do a full investigation before we take any action, and that starts with taking a report.”

“A report,” I shot back snidely. “Wonderful.”

“Calm down, Allison,” Remy placed a hand on my shoulder and stared at me, hard. “This isn’t helping, hon.”

I reluctantly shut my mouth and allowed Remy to step out in front of me. She unloaded the tale to the officers with me fuming behind her. Why were they taking a report? What was that going to do? We needed to go to Chippenwood and burn it to the ground. I think the thing that bothered me the most was how nonchalant both of them seemed; it was ridiculous! They had an abuse victim right in front of them and they weren’t going to do anything? Remy finished speaking to them and they left, no one even thought to talk to me. Instead we were left with Michelle, Laura, and Cassandra, and of course Angela standing in the middle of the room looking confused.

“So uh…how are you feeling?” I asked her. I’m going to be honest, I had no idea what to do. I think she sensed it to, she kind of looked at me and shrugged. She’d come here to seek advice and guidance from me, and I wasn’t really living up to her expectation, was I?

“We should probably let the whole thing go,” Angela said. “I mean, I’m out, they can’t hurt me anymore, I-“

“We can’t just let them get away with it!” I argued. “We have to-“

“Allison,” Remy said to me, once again giving me that look. “It’s just not the time.”

I wanted to speak up, I wanted to say something, but just as I opened my mouth, there was a knock on the bedroom doorframe.

“Hello?” Brianna said, stepping in. She must have driven here from work; she was wearing a black skirt and purple silky top, perfect for an office environment. In another life I might have been jealous of her. Today I was angry at the world. “Hi, you must be Angela!”

Angela sort of blushed; I don’t think she was even remotely prepared to meet someone new. I saw her playing with her hands, fidgeting. It was what I did whenever I was thrust into an uncomfortable situation. My turn. I stepped forward and smiled a bit, laying a hand on Angela’s shoulder.

“Angela, this is my sister, Brianna,” I said to her. “We’re going to her house tonight while we try to find you another place to stay.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get it all worked out,” Brianna said reassuringly. “Right now though, we need to get you back to my house before it gets dark. I hate driving at night. Do you have anything you need to take with you?”

“Um…” Angela said. “Just…the clothes I came here with?”

“Oh, you can wear that out-“ Laura began to speak, but Angela sort of freaked out.

“Oh, no, no, I can’t go outside dressed like this,” She protested. “I mean…it’s just…I’m sorry…”

“Hey, hey, no need to apologize!” Brianna stepped forward, offering a warm smile. “You can change back, it’s fine. Just step into one of the bathrooms, we’ll make sure no one goes in.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Angela returned the smile, but nervously. “I mean, I changed in front of everyone earlier.

That was right; she had. I remembered the first time I’d been in this house and had been practically forced to change in front of Michelle and Cassandra. I’d been so embarrassed and honestly felt humiliated. Angela didn’t seem to care at all. Different types of people I suppose. Of course there was the fact that Angela didn’t want to go outside dressed and I’d been pretty much okay with it. I’d been a little bit apprehensive but it wasn’t like I’d gone kicking and screaming. I watched in silence as she disappeared through the bedroom door and went off to change, it took about forty minutes I think but she finally came back as the boy we’d seen on our doorstep earlier in the day, bruises and all. I cringed a little bit, inwardly at least. I kind of hated seeing her like this. I guess you could always say I’d lost the ability to relate to her in that moment and it kind of crushed me inside. What kind of a monster was I? What a stupid concept, I didn’t look very feminine one all the makeup came off but in that moment I realized that as I was looking at her it was like seeing a mirror image of myself. Sure she didn’t look like me, but it was the male features that I recognized in myself and it was a stark reminder that at the end of the day I was…that. I hated it.

“Are you ready to go?” Brianna asked me, moving toward the door. “I need to get you two set up for the night and…I really want to be home.”

“Our house isn’t good enough for you?” Remy joked.

“Your house doesn’t have a massage chair,” Brianna shrugged. “And your oven sucks.”

“You’re cooking tonight?” I asked, kind of excited. I loved it when Brianna cooked.

“Yeah,” She said. “I was thinking I’d do something other than chicken. Chicken is all you guys ever cook, it’s like it’s the only thing you know HOW to cook. Come on guys, take a cooking class.”

“I’m taking a cooking class!” Veronica shouted from down the hall.

“That’s nice, Veronica!” Michelle shouted back, her face a mix of annoyance and profound horror.

“Come on,” Brianna said to us, rolling her eyes. I stopped off at my room to grab my purse and phone as I already had plenty of clothes at her house and if all else failed she would let me borrow some. I walked back to the bedroom to give Remy a brief hug before departing. As we climbed into Brianna’s car I briefly wondered why on earth I was coming along on this excursion. I would have to ask later.

“How long can she stay?” I asked Brianna as she pulled the car out of the parking spot in front of the house. I tried to keep my voice quiet so I wasn’t making the mistake of talking about her in front of her again and hopefully she wouldn’t hear.

“Tonight,” Brianna said, just as softly. “I have some connections, we can find a place before tomorrow night.”

I nodded, it was better than nothing. I kind of wished she could stay longer but maybe it made sense. Like Remy said, we didn’t want to turn Brianna’s house into a domestic violence shelter, right?

“We’re here,” Brianna announced, taking a sharp left turn and pulling into her driveway. “I’m going to take a shower, you two…do whatever you’re going to do. I’ll be down to make dinner in a little bit.”

“Guess it’s just you and me,” I smiled as Brianna disappeared up the stairs. “So um…what can you tell me about…you?”

“What do you mean?” Angela frowned.

“Well what do you like, what do you not like? When did you…know?” As I talked, I gestured toward the stairs and we followed Brianna’s lead, but toward my room instead. We ascended the stairs and Angela filled me in on a few of the finer details.

“Oh well, I’m really into…80’s music and…I mean I guess I can say this now, but makeup is my favorite thing. Before my parents sent me to…to…Chipenwood I had a huge collection of stuff. It was part of the reason they shipped me out, they found my clothes and makeup in the back of my closet. It was really embarrassing. I think my mom cried for hours.”

“Well,” I said as I turned into my room and flipped the light switch. “This is where I live when I’m not at the house. It’s not much but you can stay here tonight.”

“Not…much?” Angela stared at the room wide eyed as she toed her way in, one tiny step at a time. “This is huge! You sleep in here by yourself?”

What the hell kind of room had she been living in that led her to believe this was huge?

“What’s this?” She asked, walking toward one of my bookshelves, the one where I stared my video games. She pulled one of the games out, an RPG in a steel collector’s box. I kind of smiled as she looked at it; it brought back some seriously good memories, but also a lot of sad ones.

“It’s…a game I used to play,” I said sadly. “It’s um…Dark Pantheon. I was kind of obsessed with it last year. It’s an online game, a um..MMORPG.”

“But you don’t like it anymore?” She asked, putting it back.

“Well,” I said. “Sometimes, no matter how much you like something you just have to let it go. Like…the social expectations of staying male. Hard lessons everywhere.”

I watched Angela as she took pause and put the box back on the shelf. I felt a twinge of nostalgia as it was slid back between the boxes. I had to resist the urge to pull that out again. Seriously.

“Okay so—” I started to say, and then, the most unexpected thing in the world happened. Angela kissed me.