“I know you’re a guidance counselor…but this isn’t exactly a ‘where do I see myself in the future and what school do I want to go with’ type of question.”
“Well, David, my position of a school counselor is to assist students in where they want to go, as you say, in the future, but it’s also a part of my job to make sure everything is okay with you here in the present.”

Anger kills pain, pain kills kindness, kindness kills strength and strength kills anger.

Dreaming builds ambition, ambition builds power, power builds pride and pride builds death.

Ancient sayings.

Chapter 5

The Good Samaritan

Chapter 4: New Lives Begin

After that, I began to settle in as Vicky, though some things were hard, clothes for one. Vicky had lots of clothes that seemed both immodest and conservative at the same time. Sometimes my choices were looked on as too prim and others as being whorish. And don't get me started on the makeup.

Funny enough, what I thought was appropriate, Stephanie seemed to like the best and Vicky wasn't happy with. So everything became a balance between mom, Vicky and myself.

I hadn't remembered falling unconcious. The last thing i remembered was the screaming. Before that, the trail of smoke emitted by one of the fans on the left wing. Maybe if I'd given up my window seat, I wouldn't be as petrified. I remember the water getting closer and closer and I remember closing my eyes for what I thought would be the last time. I remember saying a silent prayer to nothing exactly.

"Jonathan!" I remember hearing faintly.

I was too groggy to process anything else. Slowly, i became aware of my surroundings. I recognized the voice.

Samantha Jones is a conservative columnist who has decided to pull off her biggest stunt yet. The feminine woman has legally changed her gender to male to prove a point. While her followers enjoy the mockery, Samantha begins to experience increasingly masculine symptoms. In desperation, she turns to her gay friend, Will, for help.

“You know,” I muse as I grab my morning coffee and relax on the plush, soft sofa in my father’s living room, “it may have been in a student shithole, but I miss our old sofa, you know? The whole flat, even.”

“I know precisely what you mean,” Ophelia says, reclining as far back into the sofa as her extra-tight corset will allow. “But we shall return to London soon, and our new flat shall be even better than our previous one!”

This is the second version of Chapter 2, Part II.
It's a little closer to what I had in mind but still not perfect. However, I decided to remove some of the uncharacteristic behavior exhibited by Mirai in verison 1.
Also, I felt I was wasting an opportunity for Mirai to continue puzzling through her circumstances.
Anyway, I'll wait to see how this version is received.

Chapter 4

“NO Way. Your face, your nose. I don't like saying this, but Laurence had a really ugly nose, it sort of dominated his face. You do have the same eyes though.” She leaned forwards and sort of squinted, really examining me closely. My green eyes are relatively unique, but I was beginning to get a bit worried. I didn't know her that well. I couldn't tell her stories from a shared past or talk about a weirdly shaped birthmark that she would have no knowledge of. Maybe my disguise was a bit too good. At least I could explain what happened to my nose.

Melissa, Seanna and the seven children had watched the newsman as he did the story on the newborn being found.

Within an hour, calls were flooding the news office, prompting them to add three more staff to keep up with the calls.

Most of the calls were simply nuisance ones, no real content, just people being idiots, obstructing the search for the newborn's family.

A few calls sounded like they might be pertinent, but further investigation revealed that the child they were claiming was not the newborn.