When Talia gets home from track practice after school. She was feeling exhausted and run down from the heat. She ran on the boy’s track team and held back during practice. Some of them teased and criticized her because she wasn’t putting out one hundred percent.

She strips out of her track clothes and takes a nice, long, cold shower. She had to change into her track clothes in the men’s bathroom, instead of the locker room. One, because she had breasts and didn’t feel like flashing them. Two, because she didn’t feel comfortable in eh men’s locker room with all the other guys in there.

She lathers up her body with her favorite body wash and scrubs her body. Talia makes sure to wash under her budding breasts. She even washes her groin area, as much as she hates feeling the birth defect she was born with.

She washes and conditions her hair several times before finishing her shower. She wraps a towel around her hair and her body as she walks across the hallway. Once Talia is in her bedroom, she blows dry her hair and brushes it out.

After Talia puts on a pair of shorts and an oversized t-shirt. She goes downstairs and to the kitchen to start preparing dinner. She didn’t mind preparing dinner, since her mother worked all day. She makes homemade spaghetti sauce. She knew how to make the noodles from scratch, but she was going to use already-made noodles instead.

While the sauce cooks, she slowly stirs it. She wasn’t going to put the noodles on until her parents got home. Talia lets the sauce simmer while she makes a salad to go with dinner. She also bakes some garlic bread to go with dinner.

While the garlic bread is baking, Talia makes a fresh pitcher of sweet tea to serve with dinner. After making the tea, and put it in the refrigerator to get cold. She pulls the garlic bread out of the oven and covers it to keep it warm.

Her mother arrives first, then her brothers and father. As they sit down at the dining room table to eat. Brenda looks over towards Talia, “How was school today, sweetie?”

Brenda knew their doctor had given a letter to Talia to give to the school officials. She hopes the contents of the letter will make things a little easier on Talia.

“Principal Vernon didn’t seem convinced about the letter. However, he wants to set up a meeting between you guys, himself, and the superintendent of schools.”

“Principal Vernon has always been a hard-headed person.” Tommy has had his share of run-ins with Mr. Vernon.

“I’m concerned about how this is going to affect Talia.” Connor looks at his daughter.

“I don’t think anything will happen at this meeting, Daddy. This state and the people on the city council have been trying to restrict LGBT rights for years, and now that they have passed the law about transgender people. They aren’t going to back down.” Talia knew not everyone thought like the jerks running the state.

“Well, we'd better let Mr. Wells know about this meeting.” Brenda figures their lawyer should be at the meeting.

“I agree. Mr. Wells should be at this meeting. Did Mr. Vernon say when this meeting is supposed to take place?”

“No ma’am. He just said that he needs to contact the superintendent of schools.”

“Which means he’ll arrange the meeting once he does. Let’s call Mr. Wells anyway and let him know, Connor.” Brenda looks towards her husband.

“Alright.” Connor makes a mental note to call Mr. Wells tomorrow.

“As for you boys, you have kitchen duty tonight, since your sister made dinner.” Brenda looks towards her older sons when she speaks.

“No problem, mom.” Tommy didn’t mind clearing the table after dinner.

If there was enough left over, he could make a plate to take to work with him. Money was a little tight this week. The rest of the meal goes quietly.

Tommy and his brother Ralph clear the table and wash the dishes. There was enough leftover for Tommy to make a plate to take to work tomorrow and have for lunch. Ralph was glad that Talia didn’t leave a lot of dirty dishes.

Talia heads upstairs and logs onto her computer. Her homework was already completed, so she could browse the internet for a while. She watches some of the YouTube videos that tell the stories of people who were special forces. The stories were about people who had either lost everyone in their unit, either to overwhelming odds or bad intelligence.

After Talia watches a few videos, she lies down on her bed and slowly drifts off to sleep. She wonders if she is going to be forced to quit the track team because she didn’t fit the description of either team. She slowly drifts off with that question bouncing around in her head.

Talia is woken up at 0500hrs by her alarm clock going off. She slowly opens her eyes and can hear it raining outside. She gets up and looks out her bedroom window and notices that it is raining pretty good outside.

“So, much for running this morning.” Talia turns around and crawls back in bed.

Talia sets her alarm to wake her so she can get up in time to get ready for school. She lies in bed thinking about what Mr. Vernon said yesterday. She had gym today and wondered what her gym teacher was going to do, because she couldn’t use either locker room.

Talia’s alarm clock goes off again, as she drags herself out of bed and changes her clothes. She didn’t feel like wearing anything fancy, so she put on a pair of leggings and a top that extended past her waist to cover her buttocks. The top was one that she silk-screened that had a political message on it, criticizing the new restrictions that the state government and local government had adopted.

Most of her teachers were used to her wearing articles of clothing that expressed how she felt about the current political environment. Some of her teachers tried to make her cover it up or make her change, but thanks to the Supreme Court saying that she had every right to express how she felt. There was nothing they could do.

“Talia, are you ready to go?” Brenda knocks on her daughter’s bedroom door.

“I’m ready, Momma.” Talia opens her bedroom door.

“Good, let’s go. I’ll stop at Circle K so you can grab something for lunch.” Brenda knew Talia loved taking her lunch to school.

“Okay.” Talia follows behind her mother out to the car and gets in on the passenger side.