Jack woke up the first morning after her break-up with perhaps more pep in her step than was warranted. She really did feel good though. The first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem, and Jack’s problem was a hell of a lot easier to deal with than a drug addiction. She just had to interrogate her feelings, figure out what had driven her towards Kasey, Lacy, and Stacy and then she’d hopefully have a deeper understanding of herself and she could get to work fixing her love life. She hadn’t been seeking out trans girls, so it must have been something unconscious that was drawing her to them.

  She floated a couple of ideas to herself, none of them feeling right. Some sort of transphobic manifestation of internalized homophobia? No, she was never ashamed of being a lesbian, and growing up her friends and family had been nothing but supportive. Maybe some sort of aversion to vaginas? No that wasn’t right either; plenty of her girlfriends, at least before the current streak anyway, had pussies.

  She was running out of expnations, both innocent and not. God, she hoped it wasn’t a fetish, that would both be fucked up and confusing. Where would she have even gotten it from? Kasey was the first trans girl she’d dated and she tended to avoid porn with trans women due to the high likelihood of slurs and a vibe even more exploitative than other lesbian porn. Maybe it was the voice? That had to be it, it was the only thing specifically reted to her exes’ trans-ness that stuck out to her as especially attractive. She knew it wasn’t the right answer, though. Something was itching at her memories trying to tell her the missing piece, but no matter what aspect of her exes she examined in her mind she couldn’t figure out why the tall, small breasted blondes that made up her “type” had to be trans.

  At least she was still confident in her appearance, even while she was increasingly realizing her ignorance of her own emotions. Jack knew she was plenty hot, she was tall, a good solid six feet before things like boots or heels, and muscur from plenty of regur exercise, both good qualities for a butch to have. She kept her bck hair in a crew cut, and her job paid well enough that she had a sizable wardrobe of nice clothes that both accentuated her body and communicated her personality. Plus an apartment plenty rge for girls to spend the night comfortably.

  Jack wasn’t making any progress and she could feel it, so she rushed through her morning routine and hurried down to the elevator and her car. She wanted time to stop for coffee on her way to work, she’d treat herself to something sweet; she had just gone through a break-up after all.

  The drive-thru line was long, and her mind began to wander as she waited. She’d heard from her father that Tracy, her best friend from childhood, was a barista now. She got sad thinking about Tracy, she always did. Sadder than she was about her st break-up, if she was honest with herself. They used to be inseparable, two peas in a pod, even if the only thing they really had in common was their height. She smiled thinking back to middle school, she’d hit her growth spurt first and lorded it over Tracy for a whole year. That was the year she’d changed her hair too, a nascent manifestation of her butch lesbian destiny. Before that, she and Tracy used to keep their hair the same length so they could always have matching hairdos, though Tracy was blonde, so they never matched perfectly. When she’d cut her hair short was the first time Tracy wasn’t willing to match her, which at the time had seemed like the greatest tragedy of all time and left them both in a funk until their parents made them make up. They only grew more different after that, but they remained friends, and even grew a bit closer. While Jack was developing a bad attitude from the girly shit everyone expected of her, Tracy stayed sweet and feminine. Jack got into rugby (like football but for lesbians, she’d expin to anyone who asked) while Tracy got into theater, but they always went to each other's events and cheered (even if that got Jack some dirty looks during The Tempest). God, they’d even dated for a little bit in high school, they would have been perfect for each other if only Tracy wasn’t—

  “Thank you for waiting, what can we get for you?” A tinny voice bred from the drive-thru speaker, interrupting Jack’s reverie. She ordered a peppermint mocha to celebrate the season, and sped a bit to make it to work on time.

  Private investigative work, especially for a major company, wasn’t anywhere near as exciting as movies made it seem. Most of what Jack did was due diligence investigations for investment firms. Walking out of the parking structure and down the busy Los Angeles street, she found a silver lining to st night. With Stacy out of the picture, she wouldn’t have to worry about her next investigation running over Christmas. The big day was only a week away and her boss had warned her that there was going to be travel on this job.

  Jack marched into work determined to put her love life out of her mind, and just focus on the job. She waved hello to Maria, the receptionist, and headed up to her desk.

  On her desk she found a packet with the details of the investigation. Some resort company wanted to acquire a ski resort she vaguely recognized and needed the usual checks, making sure the cimed traffic seemed right, no major disrepair, no embezzlers in the offices, basic stuff. She checked where she was going; she really hoped it wasn’t Big Bear at this time of year. When she saw the town, she gasped. Home, she was going home for the first time in three years. Once she got started with work she’d just never found the time, and she missed it more than she had ever realized.

  She was going to get to see her old house! She was going to get to see her parents!! She was going to get to see Tracy!!!

  She was going to get to see Tracy.

  Oh god, she thought. Oh no. That couldn’t be it. That couldn’t be it. Tracy couldn’t be the reason that she couldn’t keep a serious girlfriend. Jack absolutely could not be in love with Tracy.

  But she was.

  It was ridiculous and impossible, but Jack was pining after her oldest friend. It could never work of course. Jack was a lesbian, and Tracy just wasn’t… but what if.

  All of that fixating on her exes had done Jack a little bit of good after all. A pn took shape in her mind. An evil, horrible pn that she couldn't possibly want no matter how much she really truly did. A pn that would fix her. Hell, a pn that would fix Tracy. She giggled at her desk, then ughed, then wheezed, then choked, then drank her coffee, choked some more, and ended up spitting all over her pants. Jack didn’t care anymore. She was a woman with a mission. She grabbed the file off her desk and got started back to her apartment to grab a few extra things she’d need for her trip.

  Tracy wasn’t a lesbian… but Jack could change that.