Lucky girl
There's more than one way to be lucky. Maybe, there's more than one way to be a girl?

Lucky girl

Chloe Lyons lived in Rural Devon, just outside Collumpton.

She had the fresh-faced clean-scrubbed look of a country girl, with no sign of the edgy fashions and attitude of her urban contemporaries. She went to school on weekdays, rode her horse in the evenings and on Saturdays and went to the local Church with her parents every Sunday morning.

She wore her school uniform to go to school (as all school kids must) but her uniform always seemed cleaner and smarter than everyone else's somehow.

Unlike some of the other girls, she rarely wore trousers. She either wore her skirt with tights in the winter or her dress in the summer. The only 'trousers' she wore were jodhpurs, when she was riding her horse.

Once she turned 16 she started wearing a little mascara and lipgloss to school, not enough to trigger the teachers invoking the 'no makeup' rule (which all the girls her age flouted) but enough to bring her natural beauty out and have all the boys suddenly sit up straighter and take notice.

It was generally agreed among all the boys (and a select few of the girls) that Chloe was a fox. Slightly straight-laced, but such girls could be dynamite for the lucky guy who managed to get their fuse lit.

She did Theatre Workshop instead of P.E. for one of the two weekly physical activity lessons. Theatre Workshop was mostly girls who didn't like running around in the cold playing hockey outside. The second session was normally badminton or netball indoors (alternating with the boys) but Chloe didn't attend these sessions. Apparently, she had had some surgery before she moved into the area and she did physiotherapy of some sort then, which counted towards her physical activity allowance for the week.

She played the flute and joined the sewing club. She had a small group of close friends, all girls and was, in short, moderately popular, a little goody-two-shoes and academically well regarded. She was just about the most stereotypically girly-girl in the town.

Sam moved into Collumpton with her parents shortly after Chloe's 16th birthday. She was kind of the opposite of Chloe. She had hairy legs and she smelled sweaty, she wore trousers and had skinned her knees. Her parents had ironed on patches over the holes. Her school uniform didn't quite match the standard, her shirt was grey rather than white and it didn't seem to fit quite right.

Chloe saw Sam on her first day and something about her drew her in. It wasn't clear what. Many of the other girls were giving Sam the cold shoulder. Anyone joining part-way through a school year would have a problem breaking into the complex web of friendships, feuds, and cliques that made up the social milieu for the local teenage girls and Sam had "outsider" running through her like the writing in a stick of rock.

Regardless, Chloe invited Sam to sit with her and her friends at lunch time and tried to start a conversation. Sam was polite enough but very guarded and non-committal. Chloe didn't try to force herself on Sam that first day. She figured out, if a friendship was going to happen, then it would happen in its own time. Sam clearly had some issues she didn't feel like sharing and Chloe could understand and respect that. Even though lots of people knew Chloe and she was one of the sweetest people in the area, she only had a small group of close friends. She was friendly and open with everyone, but she didn't go out of her way to maintain the network of "frenemies" some of the more social girls did. Alice, for example, had 20 "Alex"s on her Facebook friends list, over half of which were boys.

It turned out Sam was in Chloe's Form in the mornings and took Theatre Workshop. A lot of their other classes overlapped too and they kept bumping into each other. Sam accepted Chloe's help with her maths homework during a study period and soon her marks for her homework, which had been shockingly bad in her first week, began to improve.

Chloe would drop subtle hints about deodorant and personal grooming, being extremely careful not to hurt Sam's feelings. Sam would laugh it off as if such things were of no importance to her, but it was noticeable that her personal grooming was improving as she began to emulate Chloe more and more.

The two girls began to spend more time together at school and, eventually, Chloe invited Sam to come to dinner with her and her parents one evening, Sam said that she would have to check with her foster parents and asked when Chloe would like her to come.

"Oh, I've already spoken with my parents and they say it's fine for you to come whenever you like" Chloe assured Sam, "But if you come on Saturday, you can sleepover and come to church with us on Sunday morning".
Sam looked around and decided there was no one close enough to worry about.
"Thank you, Chloe, I'd really love to come...but, I'll need to get my parents to agree, and they'll need to talk to your Mum and...I'm not sure we can arrange it all in time". Sam looked close to tears.
"That's ok, Mum's already spoken with your Mum and explained that I used to have boy-bits too".
"W-what!?!?" Sam sat bolt upright, her fear or flight reflexes making her sweat.
"It's ok, I haven't told anyone else. I doubt whether anyone else would realizse."
"H-how??"
"How did I know? It takes one to know one, I suppose… I'm studying so hard to be properly girly that anyone who comes across as a bit boyish feels wrong to me…"
"Even boys?"
"Ha! You mean real boys?... Well, the spotty little twerps at school don't do much for me but… yes, I can appreciate the male form, if you know what I mean?"
"I'm a bit confused about whether I like girls or boys…" Sam blushed scarlet as she admitted this.
"Well, you're not the only one… I found Lizzie and Poppy C snogging behind the maths hut the other day. I think it's a phase because I know Lizzie has a crush on Mike…"
"Mike?" Sam asked.
"The really tall guy in our form, with the shoulders and the stubble, you know?" Chloe said.
"Oh, that Mike… I don't know what she sees in him." Sam said.
"Apart from being tall, handsome, muscular, sweet and salty, you mean?" Chloe said, with an evil grin.
"Well… apart from that, of course!"
The two girls giggled.
"But you," Sam asked "you were a boy once?"
"Apparently, I don't really remember it very well… apparently, I hated my, watchamacallem… balls, so much that I tried to hack them off with a Stanley knife…" Chloe said.
Sam looked at Chloe in horror.
"You cut yourself rather than stay a boy?!" Sam said.
"Well, according to my biological-father I was still a boy, just a self-mutilated one. I got taken into care after that. I didn't cut anything off, I fainted at the first drop of blood!"
"Wow… wait… 'biological-dad'? So… your Mum and Dad aren't your real Mum and Dad?" Sam asked.
"Oh no, they're my real parents, just not my birth parents. I love them with all my heart, they are everything a parent should be, I can't tell you how lucky I was the day that they came into my life!" Chloe gushed with a beatific smile.
"I hope I'm that lucky with my new parents." Sam said thoughtfully.
"Let's hope so." Chloe said "So, how long ago did?..."
"Oh, we first met about a year ago and I went to live with them about 3 months ago. They didn't know I was a girl, at first. It's been difficult getting to trust someone enough to let them know. Now they know and they decided to come here for a clean break. We used to live in Birmingham."
"My Dad comes from Birmingham. He says 'it's a great place to come from, but not somewhere to go to'. I think there are some bad memories."
"Yeah, I have a few of them… not Stanley knife bad, but still…" Sam trailed off and looked over at Chloe, hoping she hadn't offended her.
Chloe shrugged. "I don't really remember it. I just remember being in so much pain I wanted to die…"
"I bet!" Sam said with a shudder.
"No, silly… before I ever picked up the knife… the only good thing was that it got social services to take notice…"
"Your birth father was mean to you?"
"Not in his view, he just didn't believe me when I said that I had to be a girl. He told me stories and tried to toughen me up, I hated it…"
"And him?"
Chloe thought for a moment.
"I don't remember hating him. I hated myself, my body, my mind. I hated my life, everything about it…"
"Your mother?"
"I don't really remember her, but I guess I must have got my notion of what it was to be female from somewhere. She's dead now."
"I'm so sorry!" Sam said with a look of horror on her face.
"Oh Sam, no! It's fine, it's good to have someone to talk to about this stuff… I see a therapist every week but, you're the first person I've met who isn't paid to talk to me who might have a clue what I'm experiencing! Promise me, we can talk about anything and still be friends because we aren't trying to hurt each other just to explain and understand? I hope we can be completely honest with each other?"
"I think I'd really like that."

Chloe smiled a huge smile and ran around the table to hug Sam.

"I think this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship!" said Chloe.
"What are the odds of two girls like us meeting up? I feel like a very lucky girl!" said Sam.
"So, you're coming? I can help you and show you everything I know about being girly!" said Chloe.
"As long as it doesn't involve a Stanley knife?" Sam said tentatively.