Ariel awoke to frost on the window – a bit odd for September, but not an unusual occurrence this early in the morning. She climbed out of bed and took a quick shower, pulling on her black pencil skirt and a lacy gray top. There was no way she’d be able to concentrate on work today; she’d be seeing Rylee in less than a week! The tickets were on the way, according to Tori, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to approach the topic of bringing Rylee back with her. She had little doubt that Rylee would agree; her real concern was with this Tori person. She had to let Rylee leave, she had to. She hadn’t even known Rylee for that long, and it wasn’t like she could hold her there.

A quick cup of bad coffee and she was out the door, descending the metal stairs toward the lot behind Depot Town’s storefronts. He was there, waiting for her.

“Lucas!” she called out as she neared the ground. “You stalking me?”

“Small town,” Lucas shrugged. “It’s not so hard.”

“I see, I see,” Ariel laughed. “Well, I’m on my way to work.”

Ariel breezed past him, shooting him a grin as she headed toward the building and into the alley toward Cross Street; she sensed him following.

“You didn’t really impress me the last two times,” she called back.

“What does it take to impress you?” Lucas asked, struggling to keep up with her. Ariel laughed.

“Well, it takes me fifteen minutes to walk to work, so you have that long to figure it out.”

Depot Town barely qualified as a town, though telling the locals that really only served to piss them off. Two long storefronts constructed more than a hundred years ago, each of them several stories, flanked the two sides of Cross Street, towering over them as they walked. Ancient storefronts transformed into barely modernized shops passed by in quick succession as she made her way toward the bridge over Riverside park, the morning sun glaring down at her as she passed a bait shop.

“I’m an artist, you know,” Lucas said, catching up. “I do abstract art.”

“So you doodle,” Ariel grinned. She crossed the bridge and headed uphill, Lucas kept pace beside her.

“It’s way more complicated than that.” Lucas sounded almost offended.

“So, tell me something else about yourself,” Ariel suggested. “What do you do for work?”

“I doodle, I guess,” Lucas laughed.

“And that pays the rent?”

“Ya know…” Lucas laughed. Ariel laughed in return.

“So what else,” she asked, quickening her pace and laughing internally as Lucas struggled to keep up.

“Well, my dad wanted me to be a lawyer,” he offered.

“That’s a tired, old story,” Ariel teased; they passed a few older buildings, including the Ypsilanti Historical Society, as the Downtown area came into view. “Daddy wanted you to be a lawyer, you decided to paint, heard that one before.”

“What about your dad?” Lucas pried. “What did he want you to be?”

“My dad was a bastard,” Ariel said, coldly. “I don’t care what he wanted.”

“You know you only get one dad,” Lucas reminded her. “I’m sure he did some dumb things, but–”

“Lucas?” Arial stopped, turning around at the intersection of Huron and Michigan Avenue. “You need to stop. We’re done here.”

“Okay, okay.” Lucas raised his hands and took a step back. “I’m sorry if I said anything–”

“It’s not your fault,” Ariel said quickly, “it’s just not a good time.”

“Well...” Lucas nodded quickly. “Can I get another chance to impress you?”

“We’ll see,” Ariel told him.

“Get my number from Amber?”

“Sure,” Ariel said sharply, turning and leaving him behind. She cursed as she crossed the street, heading toward The Haven. The fall air faded as she transitioned into the heavy air conditioned environment, making her way toward the empty desk. The sound of keys clacking could be heard behind the partition as she made her way over, wondering if it was Miles or one of the other four people who worked there. She decided she didn’t care and took a seat at her desk, booting up her computer and waiting for Windows to load.

“Hey, Ariel.” Miles peeked around the partition; Ariel offered a practiced smile as he stepped around, making his way to her desk. “What’s good?”

“Not a whole lot,” Ariel sighed. “Some guy is trying to get to me.”

“Get to you like…”

“I think he just wants to go on a date or something,” Ariel admitted. “But I really don’t have time for all that.”

“You need me to fight him off?” Miles was only half-joking; Ariel looked up at him, considering, and then shook her head.

“I’ll be fine, he’s pretty harmless.” She smirked and then turned to her computer, which now sat at the Windows Login screen. A few keystrokes and she was in; her desktop loaded and the first thing she did was open Outlook. “We’re being dropped by The Reserves Network.”

“What’s that?” Miles leaned in, staring over Ariel’s shoulder.

“The temp agency off of Fountain.” Ariel shrugged. “The building was owned by Accusource for a while, remember?”

“Oh, Jesus, yes,” Miles shuddered. “Weren’t they the ones who kept sending temps to work at that cardboard box company? The one where they won’t let the employees have water?”

“Yeah, three applicants with heat stroke,” Ariel confirmed. “Good day all around.”

“What happened to Accusource?”

“Moved,” Ariel shrugged. “Over to the old Parker building. They have industrial work, like working the line at that salad factory.”

“Tossing salads all day? Jeez, I’d pass on that,” Miles grinned, causing Ariel to roll her eyes.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Not really.” He shrugged.

“Ariel.” Sandra poked her head out of her office. “Talk to you for a minute?”

“Duty calls.” Ariel shrugged to Miles, who chuckled and returned to his desk as Ariel made her way down the hall, taking a quick left into Sandra’s office. She leaned against the door frame, watching Sandra peck away at her keyboard for a few moments before finally looking up at Ariel.

“Ariel, sit down,” Sandra instructed. Ariel gave a slight sigh and crossed the small office, taking a seat in front of the desk. Sandra hesitated and then seemed to come to a decision. “Ariel, the young man you were helping, Chris. I’ve been informed he was taken into custody last night.”

“Custody?” Ariel frowned. “What are you talking about? For what?”

“Vagrancy, for starters,” Sandra said emotionlessly. “Doesn’t help that he was intoxicated. Look, Ariel, you offered him help, he left the shelter and decided to sleep in the park. He was given help, he refused. There was nothing else you could have done.”

It took everything within her not to curl her fists and scream ‘She!’ at the top of her lungs. It was a stupid thought; Sandra didn’t know, there was no way she could know. Still, the pronoun tore through her like a drill, stirring up all-too-fresh memories of her sister, Rylee, and the years of misgendering endured under her parents’ care. How hard was it just to treat someone the way they wanted to be treated? To respect their identity?

There was, somewhere in the back of her mind, an underlying sense of hatred for Sandra. She was a good person; there was no arguing that, but she didn’t get it. She couldn’t possibly understand how many times Ariel had listened to her little sister cry herself to sleep, and she couldn’t understand Ariel’s frustration and horror as she’d watched the life and the light fade from Rylee’s eyes day after day. The light she now saw in the photographs Tori had sent her. She couldn’t know. She couldn’t know, and that somehow made Ariel furious.

“So what are we doing?” Ariel frowned. “Can we bail him out?”

“If we bail him out, we’ll have to bail out anyone who does something stupid,” Sandra pointed out. “They’re probably going to do a psych eval and let him walk; if he reaches out to us after that, we’ll see what we can do.”

“Look, Sandra,” Ariel said, exasperated. “Don’t we help people here? How is this helping?”

“I told you, Ariel, they have to want to help themselves, we don’t have infinite resources. In any case, how’s your trip planning going?”

“My trip?”

“Your sister,” Sandra said. Ariel’s eyes widened, and then relaxed as she recalled the trip, which had been sitting in the back of her mind since entering Sandra’s office and hearing the news about Chris.

“Jesus, right.” Ariel nodded, breathing heavily before re-composing herself. “It’s um…they’re going to send me the plane tickets. I guess I’ll have to buy another ticket, for Rylee, so we can come back here together. It’s all kind of a lot, I haven’t seen her in two years. Look, Sandra, the situation we were in, together, it was nasty, and I wish someone could have helped us. There was that social worker, but she could only do so much. That’s why I get so upset when we can’t help someone like Chris.”

“You have to get your own house in order, Ariel,” Sandra advised. “The Haven is your job, your sister is your life. Help her, help yourself, then help others.”

“Yeah.” Ariel nodded vigorously. “Yeah, I get it.”

“Good.”

Ariel returned to her desk and took a seat, immediately noticing the flashing LCD screen on the front of her phone; the device was on silent, but the flashing indicated a call. She squinted, looking at the blocky text between flashes and was able to make out Lucille’s name. Quickly, she snatched it up and flipped it open, holding it up to her ear.

“Hello?’

“Hi Ariel, it’s Lucille,” Lucille said, as if Ariel didn’t already know. “I’ve been talking to Tori over text and we were hoping we could set up a meeting between you and Rylee today, when she gets home from school.”

“Today?” Ariel repeated it, though it was more of a hushed statement than a question. “I can talk to her today?”

Ariel experienced a range of complex emotions over the next several seconds; first there was excitement, then nervousness, then apprehension as she seriously contemplated the idea of actually speaking to her sister for the first time in years. She swallowed the lump in her throat and did her best to re-compose herself for the phone call.

“When, uh…when does she get home from school?” Ariel managed to blurt out. She hoped to god Lucille didn’t notice how much of a wreck she was.

“Well, she gets out at 3:30, but then she goes over to her friend’s house because Tori doesn’t allow her to be home alone–”

“Isn’t that a little controlling?” Ariel interjected. “She is an adult.”

“She got drunk and jumped off a Ferris wheel once,” Lucille said in a tone that was way too matter-of-fact. “Draw your own conclusions. Anyway. Tori picks her up by five, they get home by five-thirty, so Tori wanted to do around seven PM.”

“She…jumped off a Ferris wheel?”

“Is seven okay for you?”

“Um…” Ariel thought for a moment. “Yeah…I mean…yeah, that’s fine. Uh…is there anything I should know?”

“Well, Ariel, as you know, she’s been through quite a bit; serious trauma that started with her home life, and then a history of sexual abuse throughout her time in between. I don’t have all the details, Tori wasn’t able to pull everything out of her, but we do have some idea. Some. The truth is, you may have to coax it out of her, if and when she’s ready.”

Ariel began to shake, clenching her fist and staring blankly at her computer monitor until the icons on the desktop began to blur. She bit her lower lip, swallowed, and gave a nod that Lucille couldn’t see.

“Listen, um, Lucille,” Ariel said, swallowing again and closing her eyes as she tried to clear her mind and speak clearly. “I…appreciate everything you’ve done for us…I…I know we’re not your responsibility anymore, since we’ve both moved out of state and…”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ariel,” Lucille said sharply but comfortingly. “You may have left, but my responsibility to you didn’t end at the state line, any more than our responsibility to each other as people did. I’ll do what I can, Ariel.”

---

Rylee watched in the mirror as Tori slid into the bathroom behind her and studied her reflection. She’d done her hair in the same way as always, even though Tori always told her to try something new. Now, she stood in front of the mirror, scrubbing her teeth with the pink toothbrush Tori’d just gotten her. The bathroom was silent, save for the regular brushing sounds; Rylee threw an occasional glance at Tori as she ran her fingers through her newly-brunette hair and scrutinized her outfit choice in the mirror.

“You really have to try something different,” Tori remarked. “We buy you so many outfits and somehow you always manage to go the conservative route. She nodded to Rylee’s outfit which consisted of a lightweight maroon hoodie and a knee-length black skirt atop a pair of leggings. “Always the leggings…”

“I have more to hide than you do,” Rylee muttered; a stark reminder to Tori that she was transgender, and that hiding her identity, especially in a high school, was paramount.

“You pass better than you think, Rylee,” Tori reminded her. “If you could fool me for two months–”

“I wasn’t fooling you!” Rylee suddenly snapped, spinning around, and then stumbling back into the vanity as her eyes widened. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry, Tori, I didn’t mean to–”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay!” Tori smiled widely and reached a hand out, lightly rubbing Rylee’s arm. “You’re allowed to get mad, okay? I said something stupid; you weren’t fooling me, this is who you are, okay? I’m glad you corrected me.

“You’re stressed, you’re nervous, you’re in a pretty scary situation; high school is hard enough for normal people, Rylee. If you weren’t freaking out a little, I’d think you were a sociopath or something.”

Rylee’s knees wobbled and her vision blurred as she stumbled again, saved only by the vanity behind her. Tori grabbed her around the waist and pulled her close, embracing her in a comforting hug before guiding her out of the bathroom and toward the living room. She didn’t quite make it; her knees buckled and Tori carefully guided her to the floor, leaning her against the wall as she drew her knees to her face and wrapped her arms around them. She rocked back and forth, whimpering into the folds of her skirt while Tori crouched down beside her and lightly touched her shoulder, careful to give her space.

“Rylee?” she said softly. “Sweetie?”

“I thought I was going to get hit.” Rylee’s voice was muffled by the cotton material; Tori could tell she was on the verge of tears. “When I yelled at you, I thought…”

“Those days are behind you, Rylee,” Tori reminded her, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “No one will ever hurt you again.”

It wasn’t something she could believe; wave after wave of violent flashbacks invaded her waking mind as she sat there gripping her shins and rocking against the hallway wall. That time in her bedroom when she’d slammed the door, that time when her father had stormed into the bathroom, pinned her behind the bathroom door and shaken her until she screamed. The same faces, the same locations, years apart; the same open palm coming down across bare skin, the same voices screaming, years removed but still fresh in her mind. Finally, she managed to look up and to her right, into Tori’s softened eyes as her breathing normalized.

“Sorry,” she managed to choke out. Tori shook her head.

“Never apologize, sweetie.” She pulled Rylee into a tight hug and planted a kiss on the top of her head. “Do you want to stay home today?”

“No.” Rylee shook her head and released her knees. She allowed Tori to help her to her feet. “I don’t want to sit around all day thinking.”

“As good a coping strategy as any.” Tori nodded. “Okay, go ahead and finish getting ready, I’ll put your breakfast on the table. You good on lunch money?”

“You gave me a ten on monday,” Rylee reminded her. “Lunch is like a dollar twenty.”

“Right, yeah,” Tori said. “It’s probably worth about that much too.”

“I don’t mind it.” Rylee smiled. “It’s food.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Tori said. “Okay, finish up.”

Rylee disappeared into the bathroom and re-emerged fifteen minutes later with her hair re-done and light makeup applied. She ate a quick breakfast and followed Tori out of the house, backpack slung over her shoulder.

The morning air always agitated her senses; the scent of petrichor and the stuffy moisture-laden air that pressed against her skin. She hated it, but sleeping in was rarely an option with Tori. She pressed on, walking down the driveway past the box truck, and peeked around the back. Marcus was in there, scrubbing something off the front wall of the trailer.

“Hey,” Rylee called out to him as she clasped her hands together, drawing her arms into a ‘V’ in front of her. Marcus glanced back for a moment, then returned his attention to the stain that he’d been working on.

“Hey,” Marcus said back, his voice almost devoid of emotion.

“So…what’s up?”

“Cleaning the truck, obviously.” Marcus rolled his eyes, though Rylee couldn’t see it. “Don’t you have school?”

“Why are you always so pissed at me?” Rylee demanded. “Ever since you found out–”

“Before you say it,” Marcus snapped, turning around and dropping his hands to his sides. “It’s not because you’re trans. That’s not the part that bothers me.”

“Then what is?” Rylee demanded. “Why do you suddenly hate me, after everything you did to get close to me?”

“Have a good day at school, Rylee.” Marcus turned away and resumed scrubbing the stain; Rylee huffed and turned away, storming down the driveway toward Tori’s waiting car. Rylee breathed in the smell of exhaust before pulling the door of Tori’s car open and sliding into the passenger seat. She set her backpack on the floor in front of her and clicked her seat belt into place. She could feel Tori staring at her.

“You should really leave him alone,” Tori advised. “He’s going through his own stuff, you know.”

“I just don’t get why he hates me,” Rylee said, looking down at her feet, which she wiggled back and forth. “It started when he found out I was trans.”

“Rylee, if I thought that were the reason, I wouldn’t have him around.”

“Sure you would.” Rylee said, resigned. “Who else is going to clean your–”

“Rylee?” Tori said, looking at her sternly. “I care about you far more than I care about getting the stupid truck cleaned, got it?”

“Yeah,” Rylee said quickly, her tone softening as her eyes dropped to the floor of the car again. “Sorry.”

“I’m not mad, Rylee.”

“I know,” Rylee’s whispering voice cracked a little. “It’s just hard.”

“I know it is,” Tori said softly. “We’ll get there, okay?”

---

“Well, give me the details,” Mrs. Hetrick said, leaning forward and folding her hands on her desk as she looked Rylee over. “How’s school going?”

“Fine,” Rylee mumbled. She was leaning forward in the chair, her face practically in her knees as she gripped the wooden armrests. She offered no more than that single, muttered word, causing Mrs. Hetrick to frown.

“I’m going to need more than that, Rylee,” Mrs. Hetrick said.

“Why?”

Mrs. Hetrick shifted in her chair a bit and then shuffled some papers on her desk before looking hard at Rylee. Rylee turned her head, gazing through the metal-framed triple-slatted window to the road far beyond. Mrs. Hetrick said her name again and again until Rylee finally turned her head and paid at least partial attention to what she was saying.

“Rylee, I’m going to do you a favor that no one else around you is doing. I’m going to talk to you like an adult.” Mrs. Hetrick observed Rylee’s eyes flicking toward her, full attention acquired. “As the school guidance counselor, I’ve been made privy to a few things in your history. Not everything, but I do know something of what you’ve been through. I know enough to know that if I were you? If I were sitting right there where you are? I’d think all of this is stupid. I would think ‘Gee, I’ve been out in the real world, I’ve seen horrible things, and now I’m here surrounded by a bunch of idiot kids that have no idea’. That’s what I’d be thinking, and I’d bet real money it’s what you’re thinking. How close am I?”

Rylee let the silence permeate between them for a moment, her labored breathing the only sound in the room as Mrs. Hetrick watched her closely. Finally, Rylee pressed her lips together and sat up in the chair, hands clasped tight and body tense as she answered.

“Close,” she whispered. Mrs. Hetrick nodded.

“And you have every right to think that,” Mrs. Hetrick acknowledged, “but once again, Rylee, I’ll be honest with you, because no one else is: You’ve been given an opportunity – no, a gift. You’ve been given a gift. High school dropouts don’t get a second chance normally, Rylee. They can go for a GED, but that just doesn’t carry the weight of a high school diploma. It doesn’t give you the social experience or the memories. Your sister is giving you all of that. Don’t ruin it, Rylee, just because you can’t pull your head out of your butt. Got it?’

“Yeah, okay,” Rylee muttered.

“How’s school going, Rylee?”

“It’s okay,” Rylee shrugged. “Boring, kinda.”

“Did you meet the new transgender boy? No, sorry, transgender girl. Sorry, Rylee, it’s easier with you because you…well…frankly, Rylee it’s impossible to tell that you were ever a boy.”

“It bothers me a little,” Rylee suddenly admitted; Mrs. Hetrick raised an eyebrow at her. “The principal and everyone else that knows…they tolerate me because I look like a girl and I don’t cause trouble. The new girl. Izzy. She’s going to be trouble.”

“How so?”

“People like us make trouble just by being around,” Rylee said, matter-of-factly. “If she’s trouble, then I’m trouble.”

“I’d like to think that’s not true, Rylee,” Mrs. Hetrick said. “So, you plan to just never talk to him -- sorry, her?”

“Yes,” Rylee nodded. “I’ll mind my business and hope you don’t get rid of me when you get rid of her.”

“I don’t know if that’s the right way to go about it, Rylee,” Mrs. Hetrick shook her head. “It seems to me you need friends.”

“I have friends.”

“I mean friends like you,” she corrected herself. Rylee resisted the urge to glare.

“I’m not going to be friends with her just because she’s trans,” Rylee shot back. “It doesn’t work like that. I just want to finish the year.”

They wrapped up their rather unproductive conversation and Rylee headed out into the hallway, shutting the door behind her as she walked toward her class; she was already late.

Slinging her backpack over her shoulder again, she tore down the hallway toward the intersection, fully intending to take a right turn up the stairs when she heard the unmistakable ‘thud’ of wedge heels behind her.

“Hey! New girl!” Cathy shouted out from behind her. Rylee groaned as she looked back to see the other girl, Sheila, was walking beside her. Somehow, even in their heels and pencil skirts they were gaining on Rylee; she sped up, rushing toward the intersection, but to her surprise was cut off when Izzy emerged from the corner in front of her, blocking her exit. Rylee stopped; Cathy, Sheila, and two other girls overtook her from behind, one on each side of her.

“Really?” Rylee said, looking at Izzy. Izzy immediately looked away.

“Hey, new girl,” Cathy said, taking a step toward Rylee. “Why’d you blow me off at lunch?”

“I don’t have to talk to you,” Rylee snapped. “Just leave me alone.”

“I don’t see why you have to be rude about it,” Sheila shot back. “We just wanted to be friends.”

“Like that?” Rylee nodded to Izzy who had stepped away and was staring at the floor.

“Oh please,” Cathy smiled sweetly. “Isabelle is one of us now.”

“Okay, look.” Rylee stepped away from the wall, rolling her eyes as she turned to walk toward the stairs. “Whatever you’ve got going on here, do it to someone else. I don’t have time.”

Rylee sped up, walking away at breakneck speed toward the stairs; she was aware of the wedge heels thudding hard against the linoleum tiles as they tore down the hall after her. Rylee sighed and quickened her gait, skipping the stairs entirely and ducking into a side passage flanked with lockers on either side. She walked a bit, took another left into another side hallway, ultimately spotting an unmarked door and ducking inside.

She pressed her back against the wooden door as it clicked shut, breathing heavily and staring at a row of fluorescent lights interspersed with cracked asbestos ceiling tiles. As she collected her senses one by one, she took in the room around her; it wasn’t a huge space and as far as she could tell, it had been a science lab at one point. She could see the wooden black-topped benches with high stools along with the wood and glass cabinets lining the walls. The cabinets, however, had long been emptied of their beakers, scales, and other equipment that might have marked this as a laboratory. In fact, it looked like a poorly conceived storage space with cardboard boxes stacked up against the front wall. Rylee pushed away from the door and took a step across the tan linoleum tile, content to hide in here until the danger had passed. Presumably, Cathy, Sheila, et al. would stop their search eventually.

If there was one thing Mrs. Hetrick was right about, it was how Rylee felt about this entire thing: it was stupid. Four months ago she’d slept in an abandoned building and the day before that, she’d scavenged through a dumpster for scraps of food. Today she was running from the school’s wannabe ‘Plastics’ squad. Talk about a downgrade.

She walked through the room, dragging her hands across the surface of the tables and glancing between each one; she noticed, rather quickly, that several of them had vinyl chessboards laying across them, green and white-checked in tournament fashion. Frowning, she noticed that a few of the boards were fully set up. Walking along the rows, she came to one board; the pieces were fully deployed and in a complex position. She studied it for a moment, both sides, white and black before finally grunting and turning away.

“Who you hiding from?” A girl’s voice spoke up, nearly causing Rylee’s soul to leave her body. Gripping the table to keep her balance, Rylee turned to see a black-haired girl with a white, freckled complexion, even thinner than she was. She was wearing a white sweatshirt and a pair of black jeans, and was overall kind of lanky. Cute, but lanky. Rylee gawked at her, nearly stumbling backward as she tried to reassert herself.

“Um…hi,” Rylee said nervously. “I, um…didn’t see you…”

“Because I was busy sulking in the corner,” the girl quipped. “I’m Beth; you?”

“Rylee,” Rylee said more than a bit apprehensively. “What is this?” She gestured widely to the room around them.

“It’s an old science lab,” Beth said, stating the obvious. “The chess club meets in here.”

“In a science lab?”

“Former science lab,” Beth corrected. “Now it’s a chess club. The school can’t be bothered to give us tables, or proper boards, or…anything really. We have fun though.”

“Looks like it.” Rylee looked around at the dilapidated room, resisting the urge to shudder. “So you guys just come here and play?”

“We did a tournament last year,” Beth said, almost proudly, but then deflated. “We lost, of course.”

“That sucks,” Rylee nodded. “Yeah, it’s a hard game.”

“You never did tell me who you were hiding from.” Beth took a step backward and hopped up on the nearest table; she swung her legs back and forth, watching Rylee curiously. Rylee watched her, fixated on the freckles, the large, rounded ears poking through her stringy black hair. The girl’s expression was hard, but not mean or annoyed; she seemed to just be sort of existing. Relatable.

“Cathy and Sheila,” Rylee said, finally. “They’re doing some weird bullying thing. I don’t have time for it.”

“Yeah, who does?” Beth stopped just short of laughing. “You’re not afraid of them?”

“I’ve had worse,” Rylee shrugged. Beth nodded.

“Makes sense. They think they’re really something, but…they won’t be around after we graduate. Then they’ll probably just be sad.”

“Yeah,” Rylee agreed. “Whatcha got going on on that board over there?”

“Oh, that?” Beth glanced toward the board on the nearest table; the pieces looked to be mid-game. “Trying to get everyone to…well…play the game right. I set up that problem for them. Bunch of knuckleheads.”

Rylee turned her head for a brief moment, studied the board, and then looked back to Beth.

“It’s a bad problem for high school,” Rylee said.

“Yeah, why’s that?” Beth asked, cocking her head. Rylee stepped over to the board and grabbed the queen. She moved it three squares across the file.

“I put the king in check here,” Rylee explained. “The queen is captured, but the file is open, so the rook moves here; white doesn’t have a good move, probably advances a pawn, and then the bishop takes the diagonal. Checkmate.”

Beth’s eyes widened; she dropped from the table and stepped over to the board.

“What the heck?” She stared at Rylee, who simply stared back with a blank expression. “I just…you don’t look like the type…”

“The type?”

“I mean you’re just…you’re pretty, and…”

“Pretty people can’t play chess?” Rylee raised an eyebrow.

“Basically, no,” Beth said. “Everyone in the club…I mean there’s only one other girl, and everyone else either carries a pocket protector or has a bad case of acne. You just…you don’t look the type.”

Rylee blushed, and then beamed, doing her best to repress a wide smile at being called pretty. She quickly collected herself and returned to the matter at hand.

“The problem with this kind of puzzle is you have to sacrifice the queen,” Rylee explained. “It’s the most important piece on the board, and people think that if they lose it, the game’s over. They don’t understand that giving it up opens up the file for the rook to checkmate. You’re asking a bunch of high schoolers to understand sacrifice.”

“You know you’re a high schooler too, right?” Beth looked at her curiously.

“Yeah, obviously,” Rylee nodded with an internal sigh. “I’m just saying that--”

“You’re smarter than the rest of us?” Beth smirked. Rylee’s eyes widened.

“No, I didn’t mean--” As Rylee spoke, Beth began to reset the chessboard, smirking at Rylee.

“Let’s find out.”

---

“Marcus! What are you doing?” Tori stalked down the driveway, head cocked at the sound of roaring water; she rounded the corner to see Marcus going at the grill of the box truck with a pressure washer. She stood there, hands on her hips, observing as the pressurized stream tore through a layer of caked-on gunk that had adhered itself to the chrome grill. A moment later, he stopped, pulled off his goggles and looked at her.

“I borrowed your credit card and rented a power washer.” He shrugged.

“You what? That credit card is for emergencies!”

“This is an emergency!” Marcis pointed to the fender and glared at Tori. “You see that? That dirt caked onto the bumper?”

“Yeah, I see it,” Tori nearly shouted. “I gave you a pack of sponges, and a bucket!”

“A pack of sponges,” Marcus spat. “A pack of sponges! You think a couple of sponges is going to get this shit off? You’re acting like my dad!”

“Okay, you take that back right now,” Tori snapped. “I am not your dad! I’ll have you know--”

“You can do whatever you want to the inside,” Marcus gestured to the back of the box truck. “Put a range in, get a cooler, whatever, it. Doesn’t. Matter. So long as the outside looks like shit. Do you want to buy a burger from a truck that looks like it just came out a landfill? That’s fine if your customer base is a bunch of racoons, but I’m guessing it isn’t!”

“Okay, okay, fine, Marcus.” Tori raised her hands in front of her. “I get it, you’ve made your point.”

“Look at you, Marcus!” Addy called out from behind them. “Growing a backbone and all!”

Tori turned around slowly to see Addy sitting there on a plastic lawn chair, dressed in a dark blue one-piece bathing suit with a bright floral pattern. In her left hand she held a plastic cup full of yellow liquid; Tori guessed it was lemonade.

“Addy, what the hell are you doing?” Tori asked, exasperation permeating her tone. Addy grinned.

“Watching Marcus do your bitch work,” she laughed. “You should pay me for this.”

“Yeah, okay, I’m not even getting paid yet,” Marcus reminded her. “No one’s going to pay you to sit on your ass and--”

“Hey, I might.” Tori rolled her eyes. “Alright, do what you have to do.”

“What I have to do is get a better angle on this thing.” Marcus gestured to the truck. “This is killing me. Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“Got sent home.” Tori shrugged. “The lunch rush wasn’t rushing.”

“It’s like that lately.” Marcus nodded. “Wait till the summer’s over, they’ll start coming in droves once they all get back from vacation.”

“How the hell do people in Springfield, Ohio afford a vacation?” Tori wondered.

“Same way they afford to eat out,” Marcus laughed. “Hold on, let me back this thing up.”

Marcus reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys as he began walking toward the driver’s side of the box truck; Tori took a step back, standing beside Addy.

“Hey, Addy,” Tori said, looking down at Addy as she sipped her lemonade through a straw. “You want to take Rylee up to Applewood this weekend? Her sister’s coming down on Monday and I really want to get her mind off of things. You know?”

“Hmm…” Addy said thoughtfully. She sipped at the straw again and then set the glass on a small metal table next to to her chair. She folded her hands on her lap and then looked up at Tori. “I was going to go this weekend, but I’m heading up with a few of my friends. I don’t think you’d like that, approved social circle and all, right?”

“Right.” Tori nodded. “It was worth a try, I guess.”

While she wasn’t willing to give up on it, restricting Rylee’s social circle was getting to be a hassle. When she’d taken Rylee in, she’d had time to learn about her, and her conclusion was that the girl was a terrible judge of character. Years of abuse and neglect atop multiple learning disabilities had left her ill prepared for the real world, and upon entering it for the first time, she’d been exposed to even worse abuse than she’d experienced at home. Tori, in all her wisdom, had made the choice to restrict Rylee’s social circle to herself, her mother, Fiona, Addy, and Marcus at times, school notwithstanding. It was worth it, but it did mean she needed to be babysat constantly.

She looked away from Addy and toward the truck; Marcus had turned the engine over and was in the process of backing it up. Tori nearly cringed as she heard the ‘clunk’ of gears being shifted from her vantage point by the garage.

The hum of the engine changed noticeably as Marcus shifted it into reverse and began to slowly back up.

“You talk to Rylee lately?” Tori asked.

“Little bit,” Addy said. “She’s pissed about school.”

“What did she say?”

“Said it was bullshit,” Addy picked up the lemonade and took another sip. “Said she could just get a GED.”

“What did you tell her?” Tori asked without taking her eyes off the truck.

“Told her it was for the social aspect. I don’t think she gives a shit. Truthfully, if I’d been abused as a child, then sex trafficked as an adult, and then kidnapped by some crazy chef, I probably wouldn’t be too eager to go back to high school either.”

“She needs normalcy,” Tori said, simply.

“I think high school is the wrong place for that,” Addy replied. “Do you have a chair that leans back?”

“Did you look?” Tori asked, sarcastically. Of course, if Addy had actually looked, she would have found a number of reclining pool chairs hanging up on the wall of the garage.

The truck backed up a little further, and Marcus cut the wheel to keep the rear tire off the grass; as he did so, the truck emitted a horrible groaning sound, and then a horrifying snap as it shifted toward the hedge line and dropped a foot.

“What the f–” Tori said as she dashed toward the truck. She rounded the front just as Marcus threw the door open and hopped down in a panic. The driver side rear tire of the vehicle was jutting outward and the trailer itself was at an angle, perpendicular to the ground. “What the hell happened?!”

“Well I don’t know, Tori!” Marcus threw his hands up and gave Tori a mocking quizzical look. “Maybe, just maybe you spent a grand on a piece of shit truck with rotting axles?! Did you have it inspected first?”

“Inspected for what?” Tori demanded. “What did you do to my truck?”

“Oh, you know...” Marcus rolled his eyes and spoke loudly, making wild hand motions to accompany his sarcastic words. “I sped up time and rotted the axles; you know me, it’s in my nature! I can’t help myself!”

“Okay you know what, Marcus?” Tori leveled her index finger at Marcus’s face, shooting him the nastiest look she could conjure. “There’s no reason to be a smartass about it.”

“There’s not?” Marcus began to laugh. “How about you get off your period and stop blaming me for shit that’s not my fault?!”

“Oh, is that how it is?!” Tori shouted back, stepping closer to Marcus – close enough for him to feel her breath. “You’re just gonna blame it all on my--”

With no warning, Marcus shoved her, pressing both palms against her chest and pushing her backward. She stumbled, glaring at him and then shoved him back, hard. He stumbled farther, nearly slamming against the trailer of the box truck.

“Okay, you bitch,” Marcus snarled, lunging at her, but instead of shoving him back or hitting him, Tori grabbed him, planting a kiss directly on his lips; Marcus easily relented, leaning into her and returning the kiss. She pressed him against the side of the box truck, pinning his wrists with her hands, and then, ripping herself away mid-kiss to stare at him in horror – a look that he returned.

“Uh…” Tori said, wide-eyed.

“Um.” Marcus bit his lower lip, and they both slowly turned their heads to look at Addy, who, with a look of utter amusement took another sip of lemonade before lowering the glass and looking at the two of them expectantly.

“No, no,” she said, intrigued. “Keep going.”

---

Rylee walked through the front door and immediately dropped her heavy backpack on the floor with a thud.

“Nope!” Anette called out from the kitchen. “Put it in your room!”

Rylee resisted the urge to groan, and instead grabbed the backpack by the strap and carried it down the hall to her room. She set it beside the door and returned to the kitchen, where Anette was busy dicing a pile of bell peppers.

“Okay, it’s in my room,” Rylee quipped. “Now what?”

“Eat your snack, smarty-pants.” Anette gestured to the kitchen table with her knife, and upon walking over, Rylee found a ham and cheese Lunchable; she took a seat at the table and peeled the cover back, immediately assembling the crackers and the small ham slices.

“How was school?” Anette called out as she began to throw bell pepper chunks and kielbasa slices into a skillet. She peeked around the hanging microwave to catch a glimpse of Rylee, who sat now at the table, nibbling on an assembled ham and cracker sandwich whilst staring blankly at the front window. She knew that look; Rylee was disassociating. She repeated her question. “Rylee, how was school?’

“Huh?” Rylee started, looking around, then looked over at Anette who repeated her question again. “Oh, it was fine, I just…um…normal school stuff.”

Anette chuckled and walked back to the stove, twisting the knob for the front burner.

“Even after everything you’ve been through,” she said, loud enough for her voice to carry out to the dining room, “you’re still just a normal teenager.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” Rylee shrugged, chewing on another cracker.

“It’s refreshing, love, don’t worry,” Anette reassured her. “Do you have homework?”

“No.”

“Do we need to have Tori check your backpack?”

“Uh…I think they’re handing some out tomorrow,” Rylee said thoughtfully. “I think something for science, maybe?”

“Keep those grades up, missy,” Anette advised. Rylee giggled a little.

The front door opened and Tori breezed through the foyer and into the living room; she glanced over to the open dining room to see Rylee sitting at the table. Removing her shoes, she walked over, a shopping bag in her hand, which she set on the table before heading over into the kitchen.

“Everyone okay with the truck, dear?” her mother asked.

“Yeah, just having some work done on the axle.” She shrugged. “Mr. Jenkins owes me a favor anyway.”

“Mom, is it okay if I play the Nintendo?" Rylee piped up.

“No,” Tori interjected before Anette could answer. “Need to talk to you.”

“Ah, yeah, today’s the day,” Anette recalled, smacking Tori’s hand as she tried to snatch a piece of sizzling sausage from the pan. “You’re video chatting with your sister.”

“How do you feel about that?” Tori stepped around Anette and headed toward the table.

“I don’t know,” Rylee shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

Tori walked to the other side of the table, opposite Rylee, and pulled out the chair, taking a seat and doing her best to meet Rylee’s eyes.

“I need more than that,” Tori said quietly. Rylee stopped eating, dropping the cracker into the plastic tray. She stared at it for a long moment, and considered simply not answering, but past experience told her that Tori would make her answer one way or another. So she did her best to collect her thoughts, well aware of Tori sitting across the table watching, studying her. Rylee also knew from past experience that Tori would watch her every facial expression, every twitch of her eyes, every single movement of her body, and within minutes, she would have surmised, roughly, what was going through her mind. She was getting good at it.

“I, um…” Rylee cleared her throat and did her best to get her breathing under control as she brought the upcoming video call to the forefront of her mind. “I’m…afraid.” Tori already knew that, no doubt.

“Can you tell me why you’re afraid?” Tori’s line felt rehearsed; she’d had the week to watch Rylee, to gauge her moods and to prepare herself for this moment.

“I, um…I think she hates me,” Rylee said quickly and quietly, looking away and fidgeting with her hands.

“Why do you think she hates you, sweetie?” Tori said, concern now seeping into her tone.

“It’s just um…I don’t know,” Rylee said quickly, brushing off the question as quickly as she could. “I just…it’s dumb.”

“Nothing about this can be dumb, Rylee,” Tori told her. “These are your feelings and this is a very nerve-wracking situation. Your feelings are perfectly valid here.”

The dining room was silent save for the sizzling of the skillet still on the stove and Anette occasionally shifting kitchen utensils or ingredients around, though Rylee was certain she was at least keeping half an ear on the conversation. Thoughts of shame and memories of betrayal filled Rylee’s mind as she tried to work up the courage to say what needed to be said. The one thing she knew for sure was that her sister wouldn’t want to talk to her, at least not for long. How could she even want that? Why would she want anything to do with Rylee?

“She was bleeding,” Rylee said suddenly, and quickly; her words were almost uttered at a whisper. Tori leaned forward. “The night I ran away. She was bleeding and I didn’t help her. Because I was afraid. I looked at her and she saw me, and I ran away. He was hitting her and I ran away.”

“What could you have done differently?” Tori asked in an even tone, watching Rylee closely.

“I could have fought him,” Rylee said, though she scarcely believed it.

“Rylee, do you remember the morning after you broke into my house?” Tori asked; Rylee winced at the memory, more shame coming to the surface. She nodded to Tori. “You came out and Fiona was there. Why didn’t you leave?”

“Sh-she wouldn’t let me,” Rylee stammered, looking down again, her face red.

“And you really tried to get away?”

“Yeah,” Rylee said, remembering. “I…I ran for the door, but…she was too fast and she held my arms.”

“Have you ever been able to overpower me?”

Rylee shook her head.

“Are we bigger than your dad?” Tori raised an eyebrow, leaning more forward.

“No.”

“A lot smaller?” Tori asked; Rylee nodded. “Were you just not trying to get away from Fiona?”

“What? No!” Rylee said. “I tried!”

“If you tried to get away from Fiona, with all your might like you say you were, and you couldn’t, then what were you going to do against your dad?”

Rylee’s eyes began to glisten and glaze as invasive, conflicting thoughts ran through her mind. Tori was right. There was nothing she could have done, but why hadn’t she tried?

“If you had tried, he would have hurt you too,” Tori said softly, standing from her chair and walking around the table. She took the chair next to Rylee and grasped her hand; Rylee’s immediate reaction was to recoil at the physical contact, but checked herself, and instead leaned over, resting her head on Tori’s shoulder as her breathing increased and she did her best to fight back tears. “He was a monster, Rylee. He is a monster, and the things he did to you were his fault, not yours. Never, ever yours.”

“I want to believe that,” Rylee sniffed. “I…”

“I’ve talked to Ariel, sweetie. She left a trail for you to follow. She wants to talk to you. She doesn’t hate you. Far from it.”

“Rylee, sweetie.” Anette stepped out of the kitchen and began to lay plates and silverware on the table. “You’re going to talk to her tonight, after dinner. You’re one step closer to seeing her again, and do you know why? Because you survived, Rylee. You, and she, did what you had to do in order to get out of there. You survived a horrible situation and then you survived again, against incredible odds, to make it here, to the two people who would care for you, and make sure you found your sister again.”

“I don’t believe in God, Rylee.” Tori squeezed her little sister’s hand and ran her fingers through her hair. “I don’t usually believe in fate either, but honey, you’re supposed to be here. This isn’t an accident. Too many things fell into place.”

Rylee went over it in her mind now, as she had done again and again in the days since she’d gotten here. The day she’d broken into Tori’s house to steal a few cans of food, Tori catching her, Tori resolving to take care of her and to help her with her transition. Tori had lost someone years before; a daughter with a name similar to Rylee’s. This had been Tori’s second chance, albeit a strange one, and Tori’s second chance had been Rylee’s salvation. They had saved each other, pulled each other from the depths of despair, seemingly right in the nick of time, when their need was greatest and all hope seemed to be lost. Tori was right; too many things had fallen into place at just the right time, and they were both alive. Rylee had survived to be Tori’s sister and Anette’s adopted daughter.

“Okay,” Rylee said. “I believe you.”

“Good.” Tori smiled, squeezing Rylee in a partial hug. “Mom and I will always be here for you, no matter what. I know it’s hard to believe, Rylee, but we aren’t going anywhere. Ariel is your family, but so are we, and we’ll be here with you, every step of the way.”

Anette brought dinner to the table and Tori filled their glasses with lemon-flavored water. They ate in relative silence with Rylee chewing thoughtfully, disassociating through most of the meal as she both anticipated and dreaded the upcoming call. The ‘reunion’ she’d been waiting for for the last two years, but the face she’d dreaded seeing ever since that one, last time when it had been prone against the dining room carpet, red with blood and covered in forming bruises.

‘Run,’ Ariel had mouthed at her. ‘I love you.’

She had abandoned her, the sister who had given her the world. The sister who had taken her under her wing, who had helped her with her transition, given her clothes, taught her to be a girl, even in public. Ariel had given her everything. Everything. And she’d betrayed her.

It was time to face her.

---

“Ariel, calm down,” Amber called out from the couch as she watched her best friend practically tear the apartment to shreds. The call was in less than ten minutes, and somehow, against all odds, Ariel had managed to lose her laptop charger. “Can’t you just use your laptop on battery?”

“Oh, come on!” Ariel said, on the verge of snapping. “You know it’ll last like thirty seconds!”

“Okay, fine, yeah, but stop freaking out!”

Ariel stopped mid-search to throw a glare in Amber’s direction. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“That you’re about to talk to your sister for the first time in two years? Yeah, I get it, Ariel.”

“That’s not even it!” Ariel grabbed a cardboard box and overturned it, spilling the contents onto the floor behind the couch. Various odds and ends scattered across the thin carpet, but none of it was her laptop charger. She let out a primal huff and threw the box aside, planting her palms firmly on her hips as she turned to Amber. “She’s going to hate me, she has every reason to, and I can’t make it worse by showing up late or…not showing up! I have to find this thing!”

“Ariel, why the hell would Rylee hate you?” Amber glared at her, wondering why her best friend was acting like a moron. “You saved her life like ten times over. You taught her how to be a girl, you took her for her mandolin lessons, you did…everything a big sister should.”

“I wasn’t there for her at the end,” Ariel pointed out, drawing an eye roll from Amber. “She ran off barefoot into the snow. She bled. I didn’t do shit to help her, Amber. She ran off and she…she was sold, for sex. She was beaten, held hostage, she went through a living hell, and I did fuck all to stop it, Amber. Why would she forgive me for that?”

“Are you serious?” Amber demanded. “I picked you up on the side of the road drenched in your own blood. You could barely walk. Why the hell do you think you could have done anything to stop it?”

“I’m her big sister.” Ariel overturned another box. “I was supposed to protect her.”

“You did,” Amber reminded her. “As best you could.”

“Just how did I do that?” Ariel demanded.

“She’s obviously been out there living as a girl,” Amber pointed out. “If she survived that, it’s because of the skills you gave her. You taught her how to walk, talk, blend in. She’s alive right now because of you. She’s Rylee right now, because of you. You did good, whether you want to admit it or not.”

Ariel grabbed a plastic milk crate from beside the door, overturned it, and shouted ‘Ah-ha!’ as the charger fell to the ground along with a dozen other miscellaneous items. She snatched it up and made a beeline for her room.

“She’s still going to hate me,” Ariel called back to Amber. “She has every reason to.”

“Okay, drama queen,” Amber called out after her.

Ariel wasted no time getting the computer set up. She booted it up, logged into Windows and immediately started the Netmeeting application. As soon as it opened, she read the IP address from the notepad on the desk and typed it into the address bar. Once it was in, she hovered her mouse over the Call button.

She breathed in, she breathed out. Her other hand tapped the desk nervously, and breathed in again. Finally, she clicked the button and waited.

One ring.

Two rings.

Three.

Four.

Five
.
The connection established, the image came into view.

“Oh my god.”

---

“Do you know how to use Netmeeting?” Tori gestured for Rylee to sit down in front of the computer, and she didn’t fail to notice the recognition in her sister’s eyes as she laid her hands on the palm rest of the laptop and ran her fingers lightly over the keys. The computer, to Rylee, was familiar, and something that she’d been deprived of for some time. Ever since the ‘new rules’ had been established, Rylee’s computer access had been restricted, and today was the first time in a very long time she’d even touched one. Rylee, not really answering, awkwardly used her casted hand to double-click the Netmeeting icon on the desktop and reflexively typed in the IP address, which was written on a small notepad beside the laptop. “Guess that’s a definite ‘yes’.”

“Your computer’s slow,” Rylee said offhandedly, distracted.

“Well, I’m sorry, Rylee, it’s a little old.”

“I could fix it,” Rylee said. “Maybe defragment the hard drive and run a spyware scan.”

“You will not.”

The laptop was set up on the kitchen table; Tori normally kept it in her room, but this setup allowed for Anette to sit out of sight at the other end of the table. To make it slightly less suspicious, Tori would make occasional appearances in the background, but they would both be listening. It wasn’t that Tori didn’t trust her, but it was more that they wanted to get more of an idea of what they could expect when those two inevitably met.

Anette sat at the other end of the table, a mug of green tea in front of her. She sipped lightly and watched Rylee’s face carefully. The girl was nervous, there was no doubt, and Anette couldn’t really blame her for that.

“Okay,” Tori said finally. “It’s seven, go ahead and hit the call button.”

Rylee complied by moving the mouse cursor over the yellow phone icon, hesitating with her finger over the mouse button.

“Rylee?” Tori asked as Rylee hesitated. Rylee took a deep breath and looked up at Tori.

“What if she hates me for running away and leaving her?” Rylee asked, her voice filled with apprehension and fear.

“She won’t,” Tori said firmly.

“But what if she does?”

Catastrophizing. The girl was catastrophizing. It was something she did a lot – she’d get a particular, usually unlikely, scenario stuck in her head and use it to extrapolate some intricate doomsday scenario as she imagined every single thing that could go wrong. It was why they never left her alone for too long.

“Rylee, she won’t hate you,” Tori said, adamantly. “But if she does, if your sister is in fact that cruel, then you still have a family.”

Tori took one of the kitchen chairs and scooted it beside Rylee, taking a seat, and subsequently grasping her left hand.

“The day you walked into my house was the day you stopped being alone, Rylee.” Tori held eye contact with a now-trembling Rylee. “You have me. You have Mom. You have Fiona and Rebecca and all your aunts and uncles; I am here, Rylee. I’m not going anywhere. Make the call, little sis.”

Rylee couldn’t help but crack a smile at being called ‘little sis,’ the same smile she got when Anette referred to her as her daughter. Both implied a sense of belonging, and both were what she’d desperately needed to hear. As Tori left the table, Rylee pressed the Call button and waited for it to connect.

She didn’t have to wait long; the ringing stopped and the call connected, the screen revealing a face that Rylee hadn’t seen in well over two years. She looked almost exactly the same; that same flowing blonde hair, the thin features, the wide eyes that now stared at Rylee from a state away.

“Oh my god,” Ariel said, eyes going even wider. “Rylee?”

“Hi,” Rylee said with a shy smile. “I missed you.”

“Oh my god, oh my god, Rylee I missed you too but look at you! You look so good! I love your hair, and you…you look so much better than you did when I made you up. Did you…I…oh my god, I can barely tell you’re trans. You look like any other girl! How did you do it?”

“Well, right now it’s probably makeup,” Rylee said sheepishly. “I don’t always look this good.”

“Yes, she does,” Tori’s voice chimed in from off camera. Ariel shook her head and then craned her neck in a futile attempt to see where the voice was coming from.

“Hi, Tori,” Ariel said with an elevated tone.

“Hi, Ariel, sorry, I’m doing some work in the kitchen, I’ll come say hi later,” Tori called out.

“She spying on us?” Ariel smirked.

“It’s what big sisters do.” Rylee grinned. Ariel laughed.

“So she’s really your big sister, huh?”

“They adopted me,” Rylee shrugged. “Um…I don’t know if Tori told you? I changed my last name…”

“Really?” Ariel frowned. “No, Tori didn’t tell me that. You changed it to Blackburn?”

“Yeah,” Rylee nodded. “I hope it’s okay.”

“Well,” Ariel shrugged. “It’s not like ‘Skye’ had any real meaning for you, and the further you distance yourself from Mom and Dad, the better. Um…what have you been up to?”

“I had school today,” Rylee said dejectedly. “I don’t like it.”

“Are the other kids being mean to you?” Ariel frowned. “Did they figure out you’re trans?”

“No,” Rylee shook her head. “It’s just school. I don’t like it.”

Ariel snorted. “It sounds like life is finally normal for you then. Did you have dinner already?”

“Yeah,” Rylee nodded, happily. “We had this sausage stuff, with peppers and um…potatoes.”

“Is Tori a good cook?”

“Ane-- I mean Mom made it, but Tori cooks too. She’s a chef. She’s going to run a food truck.”

“It sounds like they’re taking pretty good care of you. So um, I heard you can’t leave; can you tell me about that?” Ariel’s brow furrowed; Rylee watched her facial expression change through the film grain of the Netmeeting window.

“Oh,” Rylee said, frowning. “Um, I kind of made a deal with them. I mean they gave me a choice. Um, to um…”

“I heard about it,” Ariel said quickly. “I just want to make sure you’re really okay with it.”

“I am,” Rylee nodded. “They’re taking care of me.”

“Okay,” Ariel said hesitantly. The look on her face, if Rylee could have discerned it, would have said ‘Well, I guess it could be worse.’

“Ariel,” Rylee said suddenly, taking a deep breath and bracing herself. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“What?” Ariel frowned. “Sorry for what?”

“For…for leaving you,” Rylee said, choking back tears. “You…you were bleeding and I…”

“Rylee, no!” Ariel said, suddenly. “There was nothing you could have done. Nothing.”

“But I--”

“Stop it,” Ariel commanded. “You did what you were supposed to do. You survived, and you found me. Okay? That’s all you needed to do. I’m sorry it took so long, and I’m sorry it hurt as bad as it did, but you did it, and I’m proud of you, little sister. Okay?”

Rylee tearfully accepted her explanation, and they spent the next hour catching up. Rylee told her as much as she could about Tori, while Ariel told her about her job in Ypsilanti, working at a sort of aid center for LGBT people. Amber was with her, somehow. They’d moved to Michigan together and they were both working. Eventually, Ariel announced that she needed to go to bed.

“I have school tomorrow, too.” Rylee shrugged. “Can we talk again?”

“Of course we can talk again!” Ariel said, smiling. “I’m coming up next week, too, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Rylee grinned wide. “You can meet Tori!”

“I should hope so!” Ariel laughed. “Okay, sis, sleep tight, I’m going to talk to Tori for just a minute before bed, okay?”

“Okay,” Rylee said happily. “Goodnight.”

“Love you, sis.”

---

“Hi, Ariel, my name is Anette Blackburn.” Anette slid into the chair next to Tori facing the webcam; they’d sat back a little so that the grainy camera could capture both of them. With Rylee safely tucked into bed, it was time to answer some questions. “I’m Tori’s mom; I know we’ve never officially met, but I’m really glad Tori found you.”

“Yeah,” Ariel nodded. “I have some questions, though.”

“Of course.” Anette nodded, looking to Tori, who also nodded. “Ask away.”

“Rylee, um…she looks a little thin; is she okay?”

“Oh, that,” Tori said. “So, when she came here, she was a lot thinner. I think the people she was with…maybe they didn’t feed her a lot, and then she was living outside. She was basically skin and bones when she got here. So, the first night she was here, I had her sleep in bed with me because she was shaking like a leaf and I was afraid she was going to hurt herself--”

“You slept in the same bed with her and you didn’t figure out she was trans?” Ariel raised an eyebrow.

“--Okay, Ariel,” Tori said, annoyed. “Nobody’s perfect. Anyway, she got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and I noticed she had a lot of trouble lifting the comforter.”

“We didn’t really discuss it with her, but we did adjust her diet to make sure she’s getting a decent calorie intake and proper nutrients,” Anette explained. “It’s not going to be an overnight thing. She looks better, but we have a long way to go.”

“I appreciate that,” Ariel said, though she still looked concerned. “Do you have her on any medication?”

“Yeah,” Tori confirmed, nodded. “She’s on estradiol, spironolactone, and progesterone. Now she is autistic, Ariel, no way around that, so we want to get her in to see a psychiatrist who can prescribe something like buspirone or Concerta.”

“Concerta?” Ariel frowned. “I’ve never heard of that.”

“It’s like a time-release ritalin. It’s not specifically for autism, but we know she has ADHD.”

‘We’re also working on her sensory issues,” Anette added. “We’re trying some things, and once we’ve made some headway there, we’ll try to tackle her executive dysfunction.”

“How do you know about all this?” Ariel frowned and shook her head. “I don’t understand, you just…took her in and figured her out that fast? Hasn’t it only been a few months?”

“I had help.” Tori gestured toward her mother.

“I’ve been a social worker for more than twenty years,” Anette explained. “And Tori’s best friend is in nursing school. Your sister stumbled on to the right group of people, though it didn’t happen on the first try. She went through a lot to get here.”

“Speaking of,” Ariel said. “You changed her name?”

“We did,” Anette said. “We adopted her. Tori is her power of attorney now.”

“Was she able to consent to that?” Ariel furrowed her brow. “I don’t understand.”

“Ariel, it’s no offense to you, please don’t take it the wrong way,” Anette explained. “We looked for you, we did everything we could. You didn’t exactly leave a good trail behind; she never thought she would see you again. Don’t get me wrong, Ariel, I’m glad we found you, I’m glad she has you, but steps had to be taken to make her feel as if she belonged, because she does belong.”

“You belong too, Ariel,” Tori added. Ariel looked at her, confused.

“What…do you mean?”

“Ariel, as far as we’re concerned, you and Rylee are a package deal,” Anette told her. “I’m guessing you don’t have any family left, especially if what we know about Rylee’s last night at home is true. No one should be alone, and you’re not. Understand?”

“Um…” Ariel blinked, pressing a hand to her mouth and then putting it down on the desk. “I didn’t, um…expect…”

“Ariel, we’re going to get to know each other quite well in the next few months,” Anette told her. “The hard part is over. It’s time to start the healing.”