Author's Note:I do want to thank everyone that commented, you're responses totally blew me away. This story is still going strong with my muse, only because Guardians has a lot of things in the background going on and I'm taking extra time to ensure I don't write myself into a corner. So far this one is being extremely easy to write. I hope I don't let you all down, thank you all again. ~Rebecca

I’m not going to lie, I was stunned. I wasn’t trying to be rude, but this cute girl in front of me just admitted that she was a friend of mine that I had known as a guy… I was looking at her face, and I could then see the Sam I had known, well sort of. Sam had always had this look… I mean we all have a look, but his was like he was always concentrating. He had been a good damn player, and I mean totally focused, even for a kid. Now though, that intense look that he had always had wasn’t there anymore. It somehow made her face a bit softer, maybe a bit more carefree. I didn’t realize I had been staring as long as I had when she spoke and pulled me back into the land of the living.

“So, I imagine you’re rethinking sitting here huh?”, she said, her eyes returning downwards. I immediately felt like an ass.

“What? No… That’s not what I was thinking, I swear. You just totally caught me off guard…”, I blurted out, and I was even being truthful. With what I’ve gone through, with the malfunction with the way my body processed my hormones I’ve read a good bit about transgender issues. I honestly didn’t have an issue with it considering my… Well we’ll get to that later.

She looked up at me and her sad brown eyes felt like they were penetrating my soul. She softly said, “From the way you were looking at me… I just thought you were trying to figure out a way to run… Pretty much everyone else has…”

Yup, I was definitely feeling like an ass. That’s actually one of my gifts, I can be an ass without even trying to to be one… To hear that everyone else has ran from her just pissed me off. I knew what that felt like, now logically I understood and didn’t blame anyone for not hanging around when I got so sick. Emotionally though was a different story. “Sam I wasn’t gonna run okay… That just really surprised me is all… You know me, I don’t run away from anything…”

She looked relieved as she softly smiled, “Yeah and sometimes when you probably should have though…”

I remembered a few of the times I had bit off more than I could chew, and chucked, “I won’t argue with you on that, but I promise… This time isn’t one of those times, Okay?” She looked like she wanted to believe me but wasn’t quite to that point yet. I added, “You want to know the truth? When I sat down I was thinking I was in luck, I’m going to be the only one sitting with this really cute girl at this table. When you dropped that bomb, I couldn’t believe that goofy kid I knew would ever be this cute.” I couldn’t help but to have to stifle a chuckle with the expression on her face.

“Hey! I wasn’t goofy looking!”, she started to say, then saw me trying to keep from laughing and she groaned. “Ugh, some things haven’t changed… You’re awful…” She then giggled softly. She got a much more serious expression on her face the asked, “How did you not know it was me? I mean this is my first day as, well me… I’m sure you’ve heard people talking about the weirdo in drag… People haven’t even tried to be quiet around me…”

I softly touched her hand out of reflex, “You’re not a weirdo, and from my understanding you’re not in drag…You had been, but not now you’re not… Look people are just stupid…”, I start to say then I see her look out where my hand was resting on the top of hers with a hint of surprise. I gently pull it back and apologize as I felt myself blush a bit. I then give her a smile and say, “I mean they really are stupid… I actually heard a few people making bets that I really had come back to life… Like a zombie or something…”

She giggled a bit more loudly, which drew some attention from the table next to us, but we ignored them. She laughed, “You a zombie? That’s pretty funny actually…”

I nodded, with a smirk and said, “It would be, you know if it wasn’t so sad…” She looked at me quizzically, so I delivered the punchline, “Yeah… Have you not looked around here? If I was a zombie I’d be starving to death about now…”

It only took her a second or two before I saw it click on her face before she laughed out loud. That drew the attention of Mr. Reeves who gave us his patented warning stare, so we quieted down.

She half whisper, half scolded, “Your humor is just as weird as ever…” Then she gave me a big smirk, “I’m glad to see some things haven’t changed…” She paused for a moment as a serious expression crossed her face before she asked, “This freaked most people out, why are you okay with this?”, as she waved her hands towards herself.

I had to think really fast at how best to answer her, I had read how easy it was to say the wrong thing and Sam was the last person I wanted to upset. I had a lot of different reasons to not be ‘bothered’ by her, but I realized the most important one, so I decided to lead with that, “Sam… Seriously?” She nodded, but I could tell she realized that I was being serious from her expression, so I continued, “With what I’ve gone through the last few years… I guess you could say I learned what was important and what wasn’t… You’ve always been my friend… Just cause you’re happier like this isn’t any reason to mess with that friendship… Besides I can still see a bit of the old Sam now…” She immediately frowned, but before she could say anything I kept on, “Let me finish… I said I could see some of the old Sam, but what I can’t see is the person who was always so focused that he couldn’t just let go for a moment. The person who was always on edge over something… Sam… Right now, you look content… I’d say almost happy… Happy looks really good on you… As a friend, I should want you to be happy right? At least that’s the way I see it… I’d be shitty friend if I didn’t want another friend to be happy.”

She gave me a big relieved smile, but then she wiped gently at the corners of her eyes, which made me realized she was starting to cry. I started to try to apologize for upsetting her, but before I could say anything she reached over and gave my hand a soft squeeze and gently told me, with a slight catch in her voice, “Jordie… You have no idea how happy I am that you’re not a shitty friend… You might be a lot of things, but shitty isn’t one of them…” I gave her hand a soft squeeze in return, then she cleared her throat and with a huge grin she asked, “So did I hear right? You think I’m cute?!?”

It was at that time Mr. Reeves had decided we had all gotten to know our lab partners well enough and started calling our names to collect our books and stuff. I just grinned mischievously at Sam and then made the motion like I was zipping my lips shut. She just roller her eyes as she returned my grin when her name was called to go get her things.

At that moment, with as mixed up as I felt about myself and all the things I had gone through, and am currently going through, hell what I will be going through. I did know one thing at least. I felt really good about making her smile, I can imagine how hard things had been for her today seeing old friends treat her like a leper, or worse. Being the kind of friend that they should have been and seeing how happy that made her, even if it’s just for this moment, that alone was good enough for me to not dwell on my problems… At least for a little while.

{~~~~~~}

As class was winding down, I was putting my stuff in my backpack, noting that it was going to be a bit heavier than this mornings walk, as Sam asked hopefully, “So are you riding the bus home? Or are you being picked up? I was hoping we could keep talking.”

I remembered then that Sam only lived a few stops down from me, and I could tell she wasn’t wanting to ride the bus alone. I told her, “I was going to walk home, I’m trying to get stronger after being stuck in that chair for so long… I can ride the bus though.”

“Oh.”, Sam started to say, then after she paused for a moment, she had an idea. “If you’d rather walk, I could perhaps walk with you? That way we could talk, and I could keep you company. If you don’t mind that is.” She asked hopefully.

“That would be cool with me, if you want, you could hang out at my house for a bit and we could catch up some more too.”, I told her. I really didn’t want to be alone that much, without anything to distract me would cause my thoughts to wander too much and I didn’t like where they usually would go. I then told her, “I have to warn you though… We might have to take a few breaks on the way…” I hated that fact, with how active I had been, the thought of that embarrassed me. I think she caught that in my expression.

“Hey breaks are fine with me… I’ll just have to call my mom to let her know I’m walking.” She told me with a soft smile.

We already had all of our things packed up when the bell sounded marking the end of the day. We both gathered our stuff and as we stood up I noticed how much I had to look up at her, that felt like I had been kicked in the gut and I didn’t know why. I knew I was short, hell I was almost a foot shorter than a lot of the guys. I didn’t know why it bothered me to see that Sam was at least four if not five full inches taller than me.

I mumbled, “Yeah I know I’m short… I haven’t grown any in about four years…” I looked down trying to hide my embarrassment.

“Jordie!”, She exclaimed to get my attention, so I looked up at her and she continued, “Hey don’t worry about that okay… You were incredibly sick, I’m willing to bet now that everything is starting to work right, that you’ll grow a bit more.”

I winced at hearing that about my body working right, I told her, “From what the doctors have said I probably won’t, even if I do grow any taller they doubt I’ll even get to five-foot six…” I gently shook myself and took a deep breath, I then did my best to smile at her and told her, “That’s okay though… Being a runt is better than the alternative. You know, the alternative being… Umm… what almost happened to me…”

She frowned for a moment, “Jordie I don’t care okay… You didn’t care that I’m a girl… I promise you that I don’t care that you’re not that tall… You got it?!?”

That actually made me feel a bit warm, not like when you get overheated or anything like that, but a soothing warm feeling passed through me. It was kind of a weird sensation that hasn’t happened to me before, it was kind of scary, but then again… I kind of felt like I wanted it to happen again, I think that was the part that was the scariest… I genuinely smiled up at her, “Hey… You know you’re a pretty good non-shitty friend too.”

She laughed, which caused a slightly smaller version of the warm rush through me, then she told me, “Then we’ll just be a pair of the best non-shitty friends we can be… Deal?”

We both broke up laughing at that and laughing hard. Once we recovered we each agreed to meet up on the side of the school for the walk home. As I was swapping out what I needed to take home at my locker I thought about my day so far. It was great seeing Teddy again, and while I still felt our friendship, Teddy had changed… I don’t mean him just slimming up and getting muscular… He was just different, and I didn’t know what it was exactly, but it didn’t give me a very good feeling. I had the same feeling with the other jocks during lunch, guys that had been my friends, and still seemed to be friends with me, but again they had changed as well… Then I met Sam, and boy had she changed… Or would that be ‘girl’ had she changed?!? Never mind, I digress… But anyway, she had changed the most out of everyone… Except I still felt that same friendship that I had always had… Maybe she hadn’t changed as much as I had thought… I was still musing the differences when I walked outside ten minutes later to find her waiting.

“So, you ready?”, I asked her, trying to mask the fact I was already close to being out of breath just walking from my lockers to here with the three extra books in my backpack.

“Yeah, I was just about to call my Mom to let her know. I can call while we’re walking though.”, she told me smiling brightly. I could tell she was slightly excited to be walking with me, but mostly relieved she wasn’t riding the bus alone. I hated to think what she might have heard people say about her on the ride in to school this morning. People suck so hard core at times…

“Okay, I’ll text my mom and let her know you’re walking with me. She’ll be glad I’m not walking alone.” I told her as we both pulled our phones out. She started her call, while I started to text. Hopefully the distraction of the phone would get my mind off the exertion.

{Me text} **Mom, Sam is going to walk home with me. Just wanted to let you know so you won’t worry… Too much. :) **

I heard Sam’s one-sided conversation while I’m texting, “Hey Mom… No, I’m okay… Better than Okay… I just wanted to let you know I’m walking with Jordie to his house. I’m not riding the bus…”

{Mom text} **Okay honey… Tell him thank you. Are you two going to hang? **
{Mom text} **Is hang still a thing? **

Sam, “No Mom… My friend Jordie… You remember my friend Jordan who got so bad sick?”

{Me text} **Yes hang is still a thing, maybe… Oh by the way Sam is TG… Sam’s a her now. She’s cool, I promise**

Sam, “Yes, mom… Him… He’s doing good, really good. He’s just walking to regain his strength.”

{Mom text} **Oh! The school told me that there was a transgender student that was starting this year. They didn’t say who though. Have you told her about you? **

{Me text} **No mom I haven’t. She needs a friend. Today’s been rough for her. **

Sam, “I don’t know Mom, I’ll ask.”

{Mom text} **Does she want to stay for supper? I’d like to meet her. I won’t embarrass you… at least too much. **

I groan at reading that, just as Sam covers her phone and asks me, “Mom wants to know if you minded me hanging out for a bit, she could come by after work and pick me up. She doesn’t want me home alone…”

I laugh and show her mom’s text, and ask, “Do you think they are on a conference call planning this?”

Her face brightened up, and she asked me, “Really? Do you mind if I stay?”

I tell her smirking, “Dummy, I wouldn’t have shown it to you if I did.”

She laughed but still flipped me off, then returned to her phone call, “Yeah Mom, Mrs. Taylor and Jordie asked if I could stay for supper.
{Me text} **Okay she said yes. I’ll see you when you get home. Love ya Mom **

Sam, “Okay Mom, I’ll call you when we’re done. Okay bye Mom, Love you too.”

{Mom text} **Love you too sweetie **

Sam just looked at her phone with a huge smile on her face as I slipped mine into my back pocket. I then just started focusing on each step one after another. The day, plus the extra weight in my pack, was really doing a number on me. I heard her say a few things, but I wasn’t paying much attention until I heard her blurt out my name loudly. I then looked up to her, and immediately became aware of how worried she looked.

“I’m sorry… I think I might need to take one of those breaks I was talking about…”, I tell her. As I try to sit my backpack down I ended up dropping it as the strap slipped easily through my fingers, and then immediately sunk down to the ground to sit heavily.

Sam squatted down so she could look me in the eye, “Jordan what’s wrong?” I don’t even think she realized she had rested her hands on my knees.

I gently patted one of her hands, and still trying to catch my breath I tell her, “I’m okay… It just doesn’t take much to get me winded is all… Today just took a lot out of me with P.E. and everything else. This is why I’m walking… I have to get stronger Sam. I have to…” I really tried hard, unsuccessfully, to keep the whine out of my voice. Thankfully, she didn’t say anything about me whining.

She slowly nodded, and softly said, “I think I understand… Take as long of a breather that you need okay…” I just hope my eyes conveyed my appreciation as I just nodded back and kept breathing. She sat down silently next to me and just kept an eye on me, I don’t think either one of us noticed that she left one of her hands softly resting on my knee. I honestly didn’t care… I was just thankful she was there and that I wasn’t by myself right now.

We sat there silently for several minutes until my breath was coming at a much more relaxed rate. When I glanced over at her she was still watching over me concerned. When I nodded to her she gave me a smile smile and stood up. As she reached her hand down for me to take she asked, “Ready for round two?”

I grinned back up at her and took her hand, she pulled me to my feet without hardly any effort. That only made me realize how much stronger she was than me, which was yet just one more of many blows that had been against my ego. What was left of one at least… Before I could reach down to pick it up, she scooped up my backpack and slung it around her shoulder.

“Hey give that back!”, I fussed.

“Jordie no… Let me carry it okay, it’s obvious that you’re wiped out…”, She told me, trying to help.

I knew she was only trying to help, I really did know that. Like I know how my parents always try to help, but by helping me I feel like I’m being babied all the time like I’m made out of fragile glass or something. Like I said, I know they are only worried about me, and it’s started to piss me off. “I don’t care if I’m tired! That’s why I need to have the extra weight Sam, I have to push myself, so I can get stronger! I’ve been walking all over for the past month and it hasn’t helped!!! You don’t understand!”, I snapped at her. I regretted my words and anger as soon as the hurt look crossed her face. I bowed my head and being a lot more restrained, I tell her, “Sam… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean for it to come out like that… I just need to be able to do things on my own… I know I was sick, but I’m a fourteen-year-old guy, and not a…”

“You’re not a baby…”, she finished for me. “I do understand that Jordie, I do… I promise you though I’m not trying to baby you… I just want to help you… You need to understand something though… Right now, you’re the only friend I have, and I just got you back… I can’t lose you again because you’re trying too hard and hurt yourself.”

I nod and tell her, “Okay… I promise I’m not going anywhere… Sam… I can’t go back to being an invalid again…” I had to stop talking out of fear of becoming choked up. I hated feeling this emotional and feeling like I’m going to cry at the least little thing.

She softly said, “Okay… You don’t have to be… I’m going to help you, but I’m not going to let you hurt yourself because you’re being a stubborn ass… You want to carry something? How about we compromise?” She handed me the two books and notebook she was carrying, which were a good bit lighter than my backpack.

Eyeing her offering, I ask, “You’re not going to give me back my backpack, are you?”

“Not until we get to your house I’m not…”, She said. I just glared at her and tried to be mad, but it was difficult for me to be mad at her. After a few seconds I took the books she was offering. She quipped, “Besides isn’t the guy supposed to be carrying the girls books?”

I say with as much snark as I can muster, “Well yeah, but the girl isn’t supposed to be carrying the guys heavier stuff…”

She giggled and started walking, turning back just long enough to ask, “Well aren’t you coming?”

I just groaned and started to follow her, while her books weren’t all that heavy it was too heavy for me to carry with one arm, so I quickly grabbed them with both carrying them low in front of me. After a few moments of walking like that I looked down and the way I was holding them with my arms slightly forward was causing my puffy chest to look a little like small boobs under my shirt. Afraid she would notice I quickly pulled the books up to my chest and held them there the rest of the way home. Thankfully she didn’t notice, but I did catch her look strangely at me a few times… Maybe she was surprised I didn’t have to take a break the rest of the way home.

She was true to her word, she waited until we had walked into my house before we swapped our stuff back. I was still slightly miffed at her for what she did, but I understood why she did it. I also understand that I can be a stubborn pain in the ass, but for some reason the thought that she wanted to keep me around did give me another one of those warm feelings I’ve just started having.

Trying to distract myself from the warm flushed feeling I ask, “Do you want a drink? I’ve got to do my afternoon smoothie.” With the confused expression she gave me I added, “It’s something my nutritionist cooked up, so I can try to rebuild my muscles… It’s technically my ‘protein infused dietary supplement’, but it’s easier to just call it a smoothie… I’m hoping by calling it that it will also trick myself into thinking it tastes better…” She giggled at the face of disgust I made with the last comment.

“If you have a diet coke, milk or water, I’m not to picky.”, she answered.

I laughed as I directed her into the kitchen, “I think I can come up with something…” I grabbed her a diet coke, opened it and gave that and a glass to her and then proceeded to make my concoction. Which I also grabbed some cinnamon and vanilla to add to it, anything to make it easier to swallow. As I’m getting all the stuff together I turn for a moment and ask her, “Sam… Do you mind if I ask a few questions?”

She gave me a small smile and said, “Not really… I’m actually kind of impressed it’s taken you this long to ask…”

Trying to reassure her I say, “You don’t have to let me ask anything if you don’t want me to, okay?”

Her smile grew a bit bigger and she visibly relaxed slightly, “I appreciate that, but it’s okay… Ask away.”

I started putting all the dried supplement ‘blocks’ and milk into the blender, “I’m going to assume that you’ve known that you were a girl back when you were young right?”

She nodded, “I was about four or five…”

I nodded and continued, “I wish I had known… I’d like to think that it wouldn’t have mattered to me, but I understand why you didn’t let anyone of us know… What I wanted to ask is, when did you decide to come out? I mean I know today is you’re first day at school… But your hair is pretty long so this is something you’ve been planning for a while right?”

She stared at me for a few moments with her eyebrows slightly knitted together, “How did you know all that? That was pretty accurate…?”

Crap, I really wasn’t trying to come off as knowledgeable, just understanding. “I’ve read a good bit about trans stuff… That and that show I am Jazz… There’s a lot of stuff out there about it…”, I lied, still ashamed to admit to her why I really knew…

She looked like she really didn’t believe me, but continued, “I’ve been telling my parents since I was a little kid… They got a specialist to see me and I was diagnosed at ten… I was eleven when I started growing my hair out… I only decided to totally come out in the last year though…”

She still was looking at me like she didn’t believe me, so I answered, “I promise you I’m not transgender… I swear I’m happy to be a guy, actually ecstatic to be a guy… At least as much of one as I am…” I hated telling her that, while technically true. I did love being a guy, and wish I could be a big strong guy… I still felt like I was lying though, which caused my mood to drop suddenly.

She scolded me, “Jordan stop, so what if you’re small… There is a lot more to being a guy than being tall and muscular. There is kindness, being brave, and being strong isn’t always about being physically strong… You’re actually one of the stronger people I’ve ever met, and one of the best guys I’ll probably ever know.”

I knew she was trying to cheer me up, which I appreciated, but still didn’t agree with her. I told her so, “Sam I appreciate it, but I’m not really all those things…”

She argued, “Yes you are, don’t sell yourself short Jordan Taylor… You want to know the truth about who gave me the strength and the bravery to finally be me?” I just shrugged, and she leaned over placing her hand over mine, “You Jordie… You did…” That totally shocked me, and I’m sure my expressive face showed it, but she kept on, “Do you remember one the last few weeks before they pulled you out of school?
When students were having to push you around to your classes?”

I’ve tried to forget those times, being helpless and having to depend on others to do almost everything for you, was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had. I asked, “Seeing me as an invalid gave you strength?”

Sam smiled softly, “No Jordie, you might have been too weak to do stuff, but you weren’t an invalid… Do you remember the day I pushed you around? It was that day that I decided to do this…”

I tried to remember that day, and thankfully I did. I had been in a lot of pain, but I had remembered Sam had been really depressed. I asked, “I remember that day, you were pretty upset about something… I thought it was having to wheel me around… What did I do?”

Sam sniffled slightly, “Jordie… I was upset… Yes, I was upset about seeing you like that, but I was hating myself for not having the courage to come out to anyone but my parents… Then I spent that day with you… We all knew that you were going to die, and soon… That last year you had faded so fast… You didn’t let that change you… You joked with me, I know to cheer me up… I remember you telling me not to worry, that you were going to live long enough so we could have wheelchair relays in our nursing home…” She started to tear up and grabbed a napkin to blow her nose, then she continued, “Here I was wallowing with something I had already started but I was too scared to be myself in school… Then I saw you, this guy who was staring death right in the face and you were like fuck it and took time to cheer me up… That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen… You showed me how to be brave enough to do this… Here I am… And look, you still are too… I can’t tell you how much I’m going to look forward to those relays… I’m going to hold you to that Mr.”

I sat there stunned and staring at the tears that were sneaking out the corners of her eyes, I felt my emotions well up and they wanted to join with her in a good cry… As much as I wanted to, I also hated it, so I choked it down the best I could and as stupid as I knew it would sound, it was the only thing I felt brave enough to try to get out, so I just softly said, “Okay…”

 
 
To be continued.