The sun was up, work was in thirty minutes, and her bladder was close to bursting. But Natalie did not get up from the bed. Mentally, she was just too exhausted, from Astian, from Kira, from Nathan, and from herself. She was tired of life.

She found herself dreading the night after work. Why did she agree to go out clubbing with Kira? Kira didn’t love her back, and Natalie shouldn’t have been loving her at all. She was only setting herself up for disappointment. “Friends can go clubbing” is not something that works when your mind is forcing you to crush on someone. Besides, Kira wasn’t going to drive Astian out of her mind.

Would she?

No, definitely not.

She sighed and picked up her phone. Twenty-five minutes until she had to leave. Her bladder was basically at the seams now.

She closed her eyes and brought her phone down to her stomach, breathing deeply.

Today was going to be a long day.

***

It took her another five minutes before she finally went to the bathroom and began getting ready. Doing the daily process sort of helped, by the time she was in her car she was back at her usual crappy morning mood, an improvement compared to before.

On her way to work she passed by a nightclub, the same one she went so many times to as Natalie. Even just a brief glance from the corner of the eye filled her mind with memories of dancing in extravagant outfits.

Another item on the ever increasing list of things she missed about being a woman: feeling sexy. She never really felt sexy as a man. And like a lot of things lately, she never realized just how much she liked it until it was ripped away from her.

She managed to put that out of her mind long enough to make it to Home Depot. Time to get this shift over with, then she has the weekend to herself. Hopefully she could have another talk with Sara. There were a LOT of things they needed to discuss.

For now, she was just going to go up to Kira, tell her she had other plans preventing her from going clubbing, and apologize for the inconvenience. It was what was best for both of them. The sooner she ripped this band-aid off, the better.

Hopefully she was here today.

Natalie walked through the front doors of Home Depot, went to the paint department, and with a sigh of relief, she saw Kira standing there, all decked out in her uniform and violet hair. Natalie’s gaze got stuck on her eyes when she turned around. Her eyeliner was really pretty today…

“Oh hey Nathan.” She said. “Sorry I wasn’t here yesterday, something came up. More family drama, rather not talk about it.”

“Uh… yeah…”

“Hey, are you okay?” Kira asked, sounding concerned. “You look a little pale.”

“I do?” Natalie asked nervously. “I mean… that’s not important. You’re not my Mom.”

Kira huffed at that. “Where would the world be if we didn’t have more people acting like your Mom and worrying about your safety? Now, is something wrong? You can tell me if you want.”

Natalie gulped. “I… um…” She hesitated, her eyes darting back and forth from the clock to Kira.

“I…” Natalie started. “…Just wanted to say I’m very excited for the club tonight and I-I can’t wait to go there tonight!”

Kira squinted her eyebrows, clearly confused. Natalie almost forced a smile, but decided not to. It’d probably make her look psychotic.

Natalie was about to turn away to hide in the bathroom, but behind her, Kira tilted her head, just a bit, and said “you know you don’t have to go if you don’t want to”.

Natalie stopped, closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths to calm her heartbeat. She slowly turned around and walked back to her.

“I guess I’m not as slick as I thought.” Natalie snorted.

“You weren’t.” Kira affirmed. “Are you really having second thoughts about it? It’s fine if you are, I won’t mind.”

“No it’s just…” Natalie paused, trying to gather her thoughts. “I guess I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking lately. And I… don’t know if I should go?”

“There’s that word again, should.” Kira remarked.

“What about it?”

“I remember you telling me you’ve been doing a lot of things because you think you have to, but you weren’t thinking about what you want. So, tell me, if you stop thinking about if you SHOULD come clubbing with me, what do you WANT?”

“I…” Natalie had to think. What did she want? She wanted Astian out of her mind, she wanted to be a woman again, and she wanted to stop loving Kira, all things that pointed to her not going clubbing as a man with the woman she was clearly attracted to. She knew that would only make things worse.

…How did she know that?

She looked to the floor with the same squinted eyebrows Kira had on her face earlier. She… may have been doing a little too much guessing there. She couldnt know for sure if the club would be bad for her, not unless she went.

And… she really did want to go.

She looked back to Kira’s face, and saw that beautiful, vibrant violet hair again. She looked back to her eyes, once more seeing how pretty they were.

And she realized, what the hell was she doing? She was in this world for a reason, and that reason was not to run away from life. She was not about to let anyone down, not Kira, not Nathan, not herself.

“I’ll go.” Natalie said, confident. “I want it.”

Kira looked at Natalie with a hint of skepticism. “You’re sure of it?”

“Why would I lie?”

Kira smiled, giving her a nod. “Alright. I… guess we’ll be meeting after work today?”

“Won’t we be getting lunch together?”

Kira snorted. “Right, thanks for reminding me. We’ll meet at lunch.”

Nathan smiled and nodded back. “Yes, that sounds… great. I can’t wait.”