Ari brings a friend to poker night, but what's her real game?

Chapter 1
I find myself stumbling across the brush that fills the valley. My memory of how I got here was a complete blank. The last thing I remember was loading up to go on a convoy to Kandahar. I no longer have my weapon with me. I still have my body armor and assault pack with me. Soot and blood cover my uniform.

I touch my head and feel it wet and sticky. Blood is covering my face. Grabbing my first aid kit from my body armor, I proceed to wrap my head wound. My head is still pounding in pain.

It was a fifteen minute walk from the school to Zack's house. All the way there, Zack contemplated how she'd break the news to her parents. Would she text them before she got home to tell them what happened? Would she knock on the door and say hi before telling them the whole story? Hundreds of different scenarios played out in her mind, each even worse than the last.

“I appreciate the…offer,” Jen shifted uncomfortably in front of Sheena’s desk. “But…First Girl I…I don’t think this is the job for me.”

“I disagree, Jenise”, Sheena said, placing emphasis on the last quarter of Jen’s name. She grinned inwardly as Jen grimaced at the use of her full name. “You have shown great proficiency in your position, and to put it all forward, my dear, you cannot spend the entirety of your service career scrubbing…shit. ‘Tis a new word I learned. Shit. Does it suit me?”

Zack hated summer school.

The whole point of summer vacation was to give kids a two-to-three month break from school, wasn't it? So why even have summer school? That just totally defeated the purpose. But Zack's parents insisted that he needed it, so here he was, sitting in the classroom while listening to Mrs. Swanson drone on and on about math.

Chapter 2

She looked at me wide-eyed, “I’m going to spend the next year flying with the next boss of the company? That’s wild.”

We drove to the secure parking under the office building and left our things in the back as we got into the elevator. I punched the button for the top floor.

As we rose, she said, in a very timid voice, “I’ve never been up there before, this is scary.”

I told her not to worry; Terry was a good guy and would never put anyone into a situation he didn’t know they could handle.

“Who are you? I didn’t know Jenny had a sister,” he said.

I had been reviewing for a test tomorrow at the dining room table when I got interrupted.

House sitting
 

I lost all my savings. I lost my job. I could survive anything but the loss of my best friend.
 

“Well, it’s only around five or six times a day now instead of almost constantly. That’s better. But it’s still plenty bad.”

One of the trans guys at the meeting announced that he’d finally figured out his permanent name (he’d been trying out different ones, like me). That reminded me again that I needed to think more about my name. Amanda was nice, but it wasn’t quite right, any more than Natalie, Amber, Isabella or any of the others I’d tried on for a few hours.

A trans woman faces the loss of the love of her life.

Another self-contained short story retelling a tale many of us which had happened to us: a gender-confused boy, a supportive mother, and concerns about the future.