I arrived at the GAT house maybe an hour later, laptop in hand, noticing immediately that there were a few extra cars parked on the curb. That was a little odd considering the house had parking in the back, were they having a party or something? I shrugged it off and pushed through the gate, making my way toward the porch. A quick trip the creaky steps ended in me standing before the white door which I’d seen so many times in the last month and a half. I knock lightly, as always, probably hoping somewhere deep inside that the door wouldn’t open. But it did, it always did. Lauren stood before me, wearing her usual tight cami covered with an open collared shirt, both of which framed her body perfectly. I was concerned, really concerned that whenever I saw another girl now I found myself checking out her outfit before I even looked at HER.

“Did you bring everything?” Lauren asked me, craning to see the laptop under my shoulder. “Do you have it all on there?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I can just get onto the student portal to find the missing assignments and I have a few of the documents on my computer, I can share them with you over One Drive if we need to.”

“Okay great,” Lauren nodded as she led me into the house. “We’re set up in the conference room, we can tackle the assignments one by one, it shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”

“Wait,” I frowned. “You’re ALL helping with this?”

“Yep,” Tiffany stepped out from the kitchen and joined us as we walked toward the back of the house. “We’re all going to help you fix this little problem, it’s kind of cheating but we think your um…life here is a little more important than some bullshit paper you probably could have aced anyway.”

I started to mutter at least a word of thanks as Tiffany threw the conference door open but I was immediately ushered in by Isabella who directed me to an empty seat. Aleah was nowhere to be seen but Courtney and Liz were here.

“H’okay,” Courtney said, clearing her throat. “We need to start with um…the Odysseus paper. It’s going to be pretty easy to write, I did it last year. Basically you’re trying to show that the ‘hero’ of a story isn’t always the ‘hero’.”

“Wait,” Tiffany said, probably feigning confusion. “You’re telling me people write books where the hero is the bad guy?”

“Uh, kinda,” Courtney nodded as she took a seat at the conference table and opened her own laptop. “Like…take Dune for example, Paul is portrayed as a revolutionary but if you look at the deeper meaning, he’s really just a ‘white savior’ type that appropriated an entire culture to get revenge on the guy that killed his daddy.”

“Ya’ll are a bunch of nerds,” Tiffany rolled her eyes.

“Audrey, please focus on your paper,” Courtney told me. “Lauren and I will work on the other two. This shouldn’t take long.”

I plugged away at the keyboard for what seemed like hours, but every time I would glance at the clock it had only been five to ten minutes. Every once in a while I would look up from my keyboard to see Courtney staring at me and motioning for me to get back to work. Tiffany sat in silence at the head of the table staring at an iPad and occasionally, poking at her own laptop. I wondered what she was doing but I felt like if I stood up to look I would get thrashed, for starters. So, I continued until the paper was done, it really didn’t take long.

“Okay, I can send this over to Mr. Stenson,” I said, saving the document one more time.

“Proofread it,” Tiffany said, still staring at her own screen. I sighed and went back to the top of the document, working my way down and fixing a few spelling errors as I went.

“Okay,” I heard Courtney say from beside me. “I made this different enough from the paper I did last year I think, and I’ve pretty much emulated Audrey’s writing style-“

“How do you know my writing style?” I turned to look at her incredulously.

“Um, we’ve all read your forum posts from the Transgender Hope site, and any texts you send us are basically books. I know how you write.”

I turned bright red, there were no words sufficient to convey my embarrassment. I looked back to my own computer, trying to avoid Courtney’s piercing stare, and then I started to look back to Tiffany to ask her if was okay to send my own paper in. Just as I opened my mouth, the conference room door opened and another girl stuck her head in.

“Hey Tiffany, there’s some girl here to see you, not sure who she is, or whatever,” The girl said before stepping out again, leaving the door open.

“Not like I don’t have things to do,” Tiffany muttered as she closed her laptop and stood up. She pushed her chair back and walked out towards the living room. I listened for a moment, and then I heard her practically shout: “What the fuck are you doing here?”!

I looked back at Courtney and Lauren who both shrugged. We immediately stood from the table and began our walk to the living room; whatever the drama was, we weren’t going to miss it. I went first, emerging from the conference room and into the tiny hallway that led into the dining room area. As I emerged into sight of the living room I heard it, a voice that I never expected to hear again.

“I came here to work things out with you TIFFANY,” Chastity, my ex-girlfriend said snobbishly. “I think if we just talk it out we can – wait, what the hell is HE still doing here?”

Tiffany turned to look at me, Chastity glared at me. I stood there with a lump in my throat.

“Chastity, we agreed you wouldn’t come back here,” Tiffany folded her arms. “At this point you’re harassing one of my friends. If you keep coming back here we can file a trespass order and make sure you stay a hundred yards away from the house at all times. I don’t feel like doing it, and I’m sure you don’t want it on your record so-“

“NO!” Chastity practically screamed and stomped her foot. “You and I were friends and then…HE came up with this trans crap. He’s lying to you, he’s a liar! What is it, Todd? Did you read about being transgendered online and use it to get close to them? They’re not going to fuck you, Todd, they want real men, not men that pretend to be sissies, you’re pathetic.”

Her words weren’t true but they cut deep nonetheless. Yeah, we’d broken up but she was still someone I loved, despite how she was treating me right now. I turned to the right and pretended to look at my phone; I couldn’t let her see me cry.

“Oh, what, you’re just going to ignore me you tranny piece of shit?!” Chastity began to storm toward me, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Tiffany and Lauren literally grab her by the arms and pull her back. “Get off of me!”

“Chastity you’re…going to have to go,” Tiffany said firmly. “You’re not welcome here anymore, stop harassing us, stop harassing her or I’ll go to the police.”

“Oh, you know what?” Chastity shook free of Tiffany and Lauran, glaring at me and stomping toward the front door. “You’re ALL going to have problems, ALL of you in about a day, I swear to god. This little…thing you have going? It’s over. I’m going to DESTROY you, and I’m going to end your little game, Todd. Just wait, just FUCKING wait!”

With that, she slammed the front door, and we heard an angry shriek from the front walk as she exited the property. There was a brief moment of silence and finally, Tiffany looked up at me and spoke as if nothing had happened.

“Get the paper turned in.”