My eyes cracked open ever so slowly, the world began to materialize around me as I became vaguely aware of my surroundings. I was in a room, on a bed, that much I could tell. My head was pounding, my body absolutely aching; every muscle screamed in horror as I tilted my field of view and tried to take in the room.

“Hello?” I called out as I pushed myself up into a sitting position. The lights were off, but I could see the orange light of dusk caressing the slatted blinds. There was only one bed in the room, seemingly, the rest of the space was filled with cardboard boxes and crates, how weird. I looked to the left and cringed a little as the pounding increased, sitting still for a moment, and squinting, I finally managed to mitigate the pain enough to lay eyes on a bedside table. On it was a glass of water, a pill, and a folded note that had the word ‘Dumbass’ scrawled in capital letters. Missing it the first few times, and nearly dumping the glass of water over, I finally managed to get a grip on the paper and pulled it to my face, struggling more than a bit at unfolding it.

Take the pill, come downstairs

-T

Slowly and carefully I took the pill from the table and chased it with the water, immediately choking and splurting the liquid all over myself, the bed, and probably the wall. I managed to force the pill down nonetheless and squeezed my eyes shut, inhaling and exhaling to reduce the pain I was feeling. Why did my entire body hurt? What the hell had happened? Who cared anyway. I threw the blankets aside and set my feet down on the floor, groaning as I pushed my body upright and moved toward the door. Peeking outside and into the hallway I could immediately tell that I was in the GAT house, but god only knows how I’d gotten here. I pressed onward, walking down a familiar set of stairs and emerging into a living room occupied by Tiffany, Aleah, and Lauren. All three seated on the couch, looked up at me as I stepped forward, rubbing my eyes and becoming very aware that my clothes were soaked with sweat. I must have reeked.

“So um...Olivia texted us,” Lauren informed me. “You fell down the stairs, outside of Mike’s dorm room.”

“You…what…” I started to say, and then I caught Tiffany’s gaze. It was something between a look of sympathy and a glare, I couldn’t tell what she was going for.

“Come here,” She said to me sharply.

“Why?” I asked apprehensively, thinking that now might be a great time to take off running through the back door. I could make it, right?

“Over here, now,” She snapped her fingers, I reluctantly moved toward her, visibly shaking with every single step. I wasn’t sure if she was going to slap me or lecture me, but to my complete and utter shock, she wrapped her arms around me, pulling me close and laying my head against her chest. At first I lurched back in surprise, but as her arms held steady I felt the tears begin flow. I don’t know how it happened, I don’t know how I was able to let go but suddenly here, in front of these three I felt more vulnerable than ever before.

“I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,”

“Shut up you goof,” She said softly, pulling me down toward the couch. She force me into a sitting position and continued to hold me in place. I wrapped my arms around her waist and melted as she rubbed my back and shushed me. I’d expected her to yell, or scream, or just slap the shit out of me, but instead she held me, I don’t know for how long but she finally loosened her grip and I pulled away slowly, looking up at her through tear stained eyes.

“Audrey,” Aleah said quietly, standing from the couch and moving closer so that she could tower over me. “You can’t do things like this.”

“I’m sorry,” I tried to explain. “It was…an assignment, we were supposed to work together and…he seemed really cool about it and…”

“No one’s mad at you sweetie,” Lauren assured me. “We just need you to be more careful.”

“Way more careful,” Tiffany agreed. “Okay look, when we first…found you upstairs honestly, I kind of hated you but now I kind of tolerate you, so I need you, REALLY need you to be careful.”

“You’re not a GAT sister,” Aleah said to me. “But you’re just as much a part of this house as any of us. You inserted yourself, unwittingly, and we kind of adopted you. Okay so, with that being said, we have something we really want to ask you.”

“You do?” I furrowed my brow. “What…what is it?”

“Okay,” Lauren stepped closer, taking one of my hands in hers. “We’ve been talking about it, and we think you should pledge to GAT.”

“Sorry, what?” I looked up at her, more confused than I ever had been in my entire life.

“Okay, obviously it can’t happen right away,” Aleah butted in. “Our sorority has…guidelines for accepting transgender people but there are a lot of stipulations. You have to be on hormone treatments, you have to live as a woman 24/7, it helps to have your gender marker changed. I mean it sounds like a lot but they want to make sure you’re actually committed to it. So, for a while, maybe for the rest of the year we want you to hang out with us more, learn to…you know, really be a girl. If that’s what you want I mean.”

It was a weird question. Before I’d snuck into this house just over a month ago, that was seriously something I would have wanted. I wanted to be pushed to transition, I wanted to be shown the way. I would never have said it out loud, at least not back then, but I wanted it more than anything. Something was different now, very different. There were so many things going on around me. Mike, Mason, the play, the increasingly heavy burden of school work, you name it. The ultimate question, I guess, was could I really transition during all of this? Could I pull it off? I really didn’t have an answer.

“I…I don’t know,” I admitted. “There’s so much going on, do you think I can really do it right?”

“You seem like a pretty ordinary girl to me,” Tiffany reassured me. “You’re a goober but I think you can pull it off.”

“Maybe…” I said, trailing off a bit and pondering. “I mean, maybe we could wait until Parent’s Day is over, it’s not something that I really want to explain to my mom and dad.”

“That’s a good thought,” Lauren nodded. “Well Parent’s Day is next week so you have plenty of time to think about it.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll think about it I just…I’m worried. I know Mason has to find out someday, and then my parents, or maybe not even in that order. I’m worried about…what people will think, I guess.”

“Okay so here’s the thing,” Aleah told me. “When Olivia texted us we were…worried. The way we would be worried about one of our own sisters. You’ve really grown on us, and we think you’ll be a valuable member.”

“If you can make it past the hazing,” Tiffany snickered.

“She already did once,” Lauren reminded them.

Well then, what did I have to worry about?