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  Hope y'all enjoy this very special, very festive chapter! Happy Halloween!

  Month 4: October

  Eli

  “-And that’s all for this week, everyone! This is Bethany, signing off! Byeeeeeee!” Bethany said, blowing a kiss for the camera.

  “Aaaaaannnnnddddd cut,” Kelsey said, hitting the off-switch on the tripod-lofted camera.

  “How was that?” Bethany said, brushing her blonde locks out of her face and smiling. She looked straight at me as she said it, blinking rapidly and bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.

  I stood behind the gss counter of the shop, Samantha at my side. She was scribbling something into her sketchbook, but every time I tried to look at it, she pulled it away. So instead, I’d taken to watching the filming process. Night had fallen across the city, bannering it in the shadows of early October. We’d closed up the shop an hour erstwhile so Bethany could film her next deep-dive into the world of manga transtion. It seemed to be helping: she loved filming here, because it let her walk around and pull books off of shelves to give things a more dynamic look, and we’d gotten a small bump in sales from the free publicity she was providing us from plugging our store in every video. Granted, a lot of the folks who came in were expecting to meet Bethany, but I was usually able to persuade them to buy something before they left.

  “That was great,” I said.

  “Mm-hm, mm-hm!” Kelsey said.

  Samantha didn’t look up from her sketchbook, but she offered a thumbs-up. She got all grumpy around Bethany- I wasn’t really sure why, but I had to admit it was weirdly adorable. Then again, ‘weirdly adorable’ described any number of things Samantha did.

  “Cool cool cool!” Bethany said, sauntering over to the desk and bending over to face Samantha and I. I shuddered to think what that was doing to her back. Hopefully she was able to afford a chiropractor with the money she made.

  Samantha looked up from her pad but struggled to make eye contact. Was she… Jealous? Of Bethany’s boobs?

  Must’ve been.

  Not that she had anything to worry about. She’d only been on hormones a few months and her breasts were already growing in. They weren’t huge yet, but combined with the diet and exercise she was doing, the fat was already shifting away from her stomach and towards… Other pces. Still, she was insecure. Not that she should be. She was so beautiful already I just-

  I nearly groaned internally. Probably best not to continue that line of thought. No sense complicating things, no matter how often I thought about saying the words, ‘hey Samantha, will you be my girlfriend?’

  Not like she’d say yes. No point getting shot down for the millionth time.

  Bethany continued, “Okay, so, we’ve covered Fairy Queen Sugar Sugar and Cutie Pie Magical Princess, I’m thinking my next one will be about Baroque Brilliant Burst? Or maybe Rainbow Power Max Force Beyond? What do you think?”

  “Uh, well, we’ve already got most of the BBB in stock here,” Samantha said, finally making eye contact with Bethany. “Only volumes 9 and 15 are missing, and we can get those ordered pretty quickly. Have you got the Japanese volumes already?”

  “Oh yeah, absolutely,” Bethany said. “And thank you thank you thank you both of you once again!”

  “Of course,” Samantha said. “You, uh…you’re a big help. To the store. And, uh, everything.”

  “Heeheehee you’re so sweet,” Bethany said. Then she looked at me and said, “You wanna go get dinner with me and Kelsey?”

  “What?” Kelsey said.

  “What?” Samantha said.

  Huh. “Uh… Can Samantha come too?”

  For a second, a flicker of disappointment went across Bethany’s, admittedly, beautiful face. It was gone just as fast, but I couldn’t help but note it. I also couldn’t help but note the flicker of relief on Kelsey’s face as I asked.

  “... Sure,” Bethany said. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  From behind her, I could have sworn I saw Kelsey mouth ‘thank you.’

  “I’m down,” Samantha said, leaning forward next to me, eyes locked onto Bethany. Just staring right at her, right down her throat, right down her…

  Her…

  Huh. Was she checking Bethany out?

  Did Samantha like Bethany?

  … Wait, did Samantha like girls? I’d never asked. Asking felt weird. I didn’t think I was allowed to ask that. Should I ask that? Not now, obviously. But maybe at some point.

  “We’ll just need to close up first,” Samantha said.

  “Nonsense,” Paul said as he walked out from the stock room. Though limped was probably a more accurate descriptor. “I’ll handle it.”

  “What? No, Uncle Paul, you can’t,” Samantha said.

  “Oh, c’mon,” Paul said.

  “Seriously, Paul, let us help,” I said.

  “We’ll help too!” Bethany said.

  “Really?” I said.

  “Yeah, both of us,” Kelsey said.

  “Least we can do,” Bethany said.

  Samantha walked up to her uncle and held her hands together, offering up a pleading look.

  “Alright, fine,” Paul said. “Many hands make light work and all that.”

  “Thank you,” Samantha whispered.

  We sectioned off the store into fifths, taking inventory and restocking and organizing anything out of pce. I counted the money in the register and portioned off the cash in the tip jar.

  When it was over, we saw Paul off in his car and then climbed into Bethany’s pink VW bug. The roof was drawn up, and starlight peaked through the miasma over the city and shimmered against every reflective surface in sight. I sat next to Samantha in the back seat, grinning a bit as I felt the soft skin of her shoulder pressed against my own. She stared directly forward at the back of Bethany’s head as we pulled out of the parking lot, eyes locked onto our driver’s ptinum mane and running her hands through her own colr-length raven-bck bob-cut.

  “Your hair looks nice today,” I said to Samantha.

  “Oh, uh, thanks,” Samantha said, still not looking at me. “Do you really mean it?”

  “Of course I do, it’s very pretty,” I said, wincing internally at my own boldness.

  “OMG it totes is, girly girl,” Bethany said from up front, her blue eyes shining off of the front mirror. “Where do you get it done?”

  “Uh, well so far, I’ve been doing it myself,” Samantha said, pying with a strand of bck hair that fell errantly down her shoulder.

  “For serious?” Bethany excimed.

  Samantha cracked that smile of hers, that tiny, scared, fragile smile that I wanted to protect like a flicker of fme in a driving blizzard. “Yeah, yeah for serious. I really do need to get it done by a professional, though- I’m trying to grow it out as long as possible and I don’t really trust myself past a certain length.”

  “Oh, I’ve got the best stylist at my pce down in Santa Monica; you want me to get you in?” Bethany said as we rocketed onto the 405.

  “Um, I mean, do you think she’d be able to handle hair like mine?”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “Yeah, I’m confused too,” Kelsey said. “You and Bethany have the same hair texture. You should be fine. I’m the one who needs to find a specialist.”

  “I keep telling you, Genevieve at my salon knows how to cut bck hair,” Bethany said.

  “Beth, I love you, but I do not trust a white stylist to handle my hair.”

  “You love me?” Bethany said.

  “Uh…well…I…that is to say-”

  I shot Samantha a text that read, ‘Wish I had some popcorn for this drama.’

  She snort-ughed, and my eyes went wide. It hadn’t been THAT funny, though my ego certainly didn’t mind the fluffing.

  “What’s so funny?” Kelsey said, turning around so fast I half expected her to get whipsh.

  Probably best not aggravate this situation any further. It was painfully obvious to me that Kelsey had it bad for Bethany (not that I could bme her, she was freaking gorgeous), and while I wasn’t sure what exactly Samantha’s feelings were on Bethany they were definitely strong ones. Better to py it cool. “Oh, nothing, I’ve just never really had female friends before. Not used to this kinda banter.”

  “Oh? Is that so? Are we amusing you, sir?” Samantha said, leaning over towards me and poking me in the shoulder while her fragile smile shifted into a shit-eating grin.

  I didn’t stand a chance. I never did.

  We finally reached the ramen pce in Westchester that Bethany kept raving about. The pce was a single room with a low-hanging ceiling, overhead lights dangling from the ceiling. We were seated on stools at a bar by the window, Samantha and Bethany on either side of me. I parsed the menu. Samantha did the same, knitting her brows together and frowning.

  “Oh, so, I had an idea that I wanted to run by you two,” Bethany said, putting down her menu and drumming her long pink nails on the table.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “I was thinking of doing a Halloween special for my next video. Gonna do this horror manga that my bestie here got me into-”

  “Blood Lake Diver Squad?!” Kelsey said, putting her menu down and exploding with smiles and fidgets. “You really mean it?!”

  “Uh, hellz yeah, gal-pal,” Bethany said. “It’s the best horror-sports-ecci series I’ve read-”

  “That supertive feels a bit narrow,” I said, “but I’ll take your word on it.”

  “Hm,” Samantha said, still holding the menu, still staring at it.

  “Anyway, I was wondering if maybe we could do a bit of promo work for it, get the shop dressed up and Halloweeny, and maybe throw a little party afterwards. What say you?” Bethany said, wiggling in her seat.

  “I think it’s a great idea, but it’s not really up to me, so I should probably defer to the boss-dy here,” I said, nudging Samantha.

  Samantha, who was still clutching the menu so tight she might as well have been trying to juice it. Who was staring at it without blinking.

  “Samantha?” I said.

  “You okay, girly?” Bethany said.

  “Yeah, seriously, are you alright, Sam?” Kelsey said.

  Samantha said nothing. She just smmed the menu down on the table and ran outside without even bringing her purse with her.

  Kelsey and Bethany both stood up, but I held up a hand while staring at the menu Samantha had been holding. “I think I know what this is about. Lemme handle it?”

  “You sure?” Kelsey said.

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “Just gimme a few.”

  “Okay,” Bethany said gently.

  I stepped outside to find Samantha sitting on the sidewalk, knees pressed against her chest, leaning on the outer wall of the restaurant. I leaned back against the wall and scooted down by her side. “Hey there.”

  She said nothing.

  “How you doing?” I said rhetorically.

  She said nothing. She just rested her chin on her knees and stared forward at the cars rushing by across Lincoln Boulevard.

  “I’m guessing this is about the menu?” I said.

  She raised her head slightly and nodded.

  “Are you worried about the food texture?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then what are you worried about?”

  “The…,” she started, then cut herself off. I tried not to flinch at how low her voice came out. She’d been more consistent about using her girl-voice tely, so it was surprising to hear the baritone I’d first known her with. She grimaced, sucked in her cheeks, then released a breath. “The calories,” she said, higher and softer.

  “How do you mean?”

  “It’s a lotta calories,” she said. “And oil. And fat. And salt. And-and-and-”

  “Why’s that a problem?” I said. “You’re one of the healthiest eaters I know. You can afford to eat unhealthy crap every once and while.”

  “I really can’t,” Samantha said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I-I’m already fighting an uphill battle,” she said. “I’m a healthy eater now. I wasn’t before I transitioned. It’s part of why I’m so fucking fat.”

  “You’re not-”

  “I am,” she cut me off. “Don’t patronize me, okay? I know I’m fat. And I’ve already lost fifteen pounds and I’m proud of that, but I can’t slip up, not even for a second.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because then I’ll backslide. I’ll start gaining weight again, and I’ll break out again, and I’ll-I’ll-I’ll-”

  “You’ll what?”

  “I’ll get even uglier.”

  “... I’m sorry, what now?”

  “I’m already ugly, I don’t wanna get even uglier-”

  “You are not ugly.”

  “I told you not to patronize me!” she snapped.

  I flinched, furrowing my brow and widening my eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, softening. “You don’t deserve that. You shouldn’t have to get yelled at and listen to me whine-”

  “Samantha,” I said, “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not. You already have to put up with my bullshit all the time-”

  “I don’t mind-”

  “But you shouldn’t have to! Don’t you get it? You shouldn’t have to deal with my fat, histrionic ass-”

  “You’re not fat.”

  “Yes, I am,” she said, staring at the ground. “And if I don’t fix that soon, I’m gonna wind up like Uncle Paul, dealing with a heart that’s literally bigger than my head and lungs too clogged up to breathe properly.”

  I breathed in and out through my nose. “Okay, look. I’m worried about Paul too. But you’re still young. You have plenty of time to fix these things. And one night of greasy food is not going to kill you.”

  “I’m just… I’m worried about backsliding,” Samantha said. “I’m worried I’ll start becoming more like how I used to be. I’m… I’m finally starting to like who I am. I don’t wanna be that ugly loser again.”

  “Stop doing that,” I said, eyes narrowing.

  “What?”

  “Stop talking about my best friend like that,” I said. “Seriously. Don’t. It’s…it’s fucking freaking me out to be honest. Samantha, please believe me when I tell you that you are not fat. You’re big, yes, but that doesn’t mean you’re not beautiful.”

  “I’m not the right kind of beautiful, though.”

  “And what is the right kind, pray tell?”

  She reached across me and pointed at Bethany through the window.

  “Are you serious right now?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes, I’m serious! Look at her. She’s gorgeous. She’s a picture of feminine beauty and charisma and I’m just…just…”

  “Just what?”

  “Just some sad, frumpy girl who dresses in all bck.”

  “What’s wrong with dressing in bck?” I said. “It looks good on you. Same with your hair. Same with your skin. And how you dress. And everything else about you. It looks good on you because it’s you.”

  “You’re just being nice-”

  “I’m being sincere,” I said, staring right at her, making her stare at me. I gulped. Was I really about to say all this? Yeah, I was. Now or never. “You, everything that makes you you, looks great on you. It makes you beautiful. YOU are beautiful.”

  “Y-you really mean it?”

  “With all my heart and soul,” I said. “And if you wanna keep losing weight, if you change how you look more, then you’ll still be beautiful, as long as you’re happy. But if you want to eat a bowl of ramen tonight, then please, for the love of God, don’t let your hang ups stop you. I just want you to be happy.”

  She gulped, staring up at the sky, her hazel eyes shining in the dark. “Maybe…maybe one cheat day in a few months won’t kill me.”

  “Atta girl,” I said, standing up. My heart trembled as I thought of the words desperate to escape my throat. I wanted to say them so damn badly. I already said so much, so many praises I’d wanted to shower her with for weeks. I wanted to tell her the whole truth, that I liked her, that I LIKED her, that I wanted her to be my girlfriend, that I wanted her to feel beautiful and happy and fulfilled each and every day.

  The words caught in my throat. I couldn’t do it. She was coming down from a panic attack, and besides, it might make things awkward when we were out with friends.

  So instead, I offered her my hand and helped her up. For a moment, we stood there under the glow of a mppost, fingers interlocked, my brown eyes locked on her hazels. She looked like she had something to say too, but she didn’t say it. She simply smiled her fragile little smile, and that was enough for me.

  “C’mon, our friends are waiting for us,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Samantha said.

  I led her inside, where Bethany and Kelsey sat where we’d left them.

  “Everything okay?” Kelsey asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine,” Samantha said as she and I sat down together. “And Bethany, I think the Halloween party is a great idea. I’ll run it by Uncle Paul tomorrow.”

  “Eeeee thank you thank you thank you!” Bethany squealed. “It’s gonna be so much fun!”

  Our waiter finally came over to us, pen and pad in hand. “We ready to order?”

  “Yeah,” Samantha said, “I am.”

  Samantha

  Three Weeks Later

  I dug through my closet, desperately searching for something to wear to the party, and found…NOTHING. Or at least, nothing that didn’t give me crippling dysphoria. Fuck, I had to go shopping. And I didn’t want to go by myself, but Eli was in css tonight. Which meant Kelsey was as well. Which only left…

  Which only left…

  Dammit, I thought as I scrolled through my phone for Bethany’s contact. Time to feel hopelessly inadequate.

  I held my breath between each ring as I waited for Bethany to pick up the phone, part of me hoping beyond hope that she wouldn’t pick up and that I’d have an excuse to back out of the whole thing. But I knew that wouldn’t really be a good idea- it was a party at my own shop. Uncle Paul had no idea how to supervise something like that himself, and it wouldn’t be fair to Eli to make him do everything.

  “Heyyy girl!” Bethany chirped on the other end of the phone line.

  “Hey, uh, Bethany. How’s it, how’s it going?” I asked.

  “Good! I’m taking a few days off for the holiday. What’s up? I don’t think you’ve ever called me before?”

  I took a deep breath and held it in my chest until it burned. But as I exhaled, I realized I had the opportunity to get some Gender out of all this. “You wanna go shopping?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question?”

  “Uh…it could be?” I said, cracking a smile in spite of myself

  “EEEEEEE!!!!! Yas, girl, absolutely! Let’s go to the Grove! Pick you up in thirty?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I sthered on some sunscreen and put together a quick face of makeup while I waited, then stepped outside just in time for the familiar pink car to pull up unhooded. Bethany wore pink sungsses and a periwinkle tank top and a white miniskirt, while she held a vanil sweet cream cold brew up in her hand as she waved me into the car. “Hey,” she smiled.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “So, I’m guessing you need a costume for tomorrow night?”

  “I do indeed.”

  “Hmmm. What were you thinking? Something cute? Something scary? Something sexy?” she said as drove down my street and into the open road.

  “Don’t think I can really pull off that st one,” I chuckled.

  “Boooooo,” Bethany said.

  “What?”

  “Girl, you are super hot, and you don’t even realize it,” Bethany said.

  “That’s very nice of you to say-”

  “So, I’m driving right now, so don’t make me flick you,” Bethany said. “I’ll do it, don’t tempt me.”

  “...okay. I’m just saying, I don’t really know what a girl like me wears to feel sexy.”

  “I can think of any number of things,” she said with a wry grin.

  Huh? “How do you mean?”

  “Oh, I’ve just had some practice at what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m just not really sure what you’re getting at.”

  In the front mirror, I saw her face shifted into a gentle, genuine affection I don’t think I’d seen on her before. Usually she was so…MUCH. But now she was quiet and calm. Serene, even. “Well, girls like us have to work a little harder sometimes, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t beautiful. And it definitely doesn’t mean we can’t do the same things as the other girls.”

  I blinked a long, sustained blink as I looked her up and down. Between the toned thighs and heart-shaped face and bountiful chest and Disney Princess quality voice, the dissonance between what I saw and what she was suggesting was staggering. “Girls like us?” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “And what exactly does that mean?”

  “Girl. What’dya think it means?”

  I crinkled my brow. “No freaking way.”

  “Yes freaking way.”

  “Are you seriously telling me you’re-”

  “Yes. Yes I am.”

  “I just…that’s really… You? Seriously?”

  As we pulled onto the highway, she pointed to her cellphone in the cupholder next to her and said, “Why don’t you open that up for me? Passcode is 420420. Go into my photos and look at the folder beled ‘the dark times.’”

  I decided to indulge her, going into her photo library and taking a look under the as-beled photo. What I saw was… SHOCKING. It was pictures of a young boy, probably no older than fourteen or fifteen. He had braces and an acne-ridden face and a messy mop-top of sandy blonde hair, and he was so emaciated the bones of his shoulders were tenting the skin under his shirt, but the eyes… Those shiny blue eyes were unmistakably Bethany’s.

  I did a series of double-takes, my gaze pulled between the literal before and after image as if it were attached to a pendulum in the pit of my shame and embarrassment. “Whoa.”

  “My deadname is Bertram, if you’re curious,” she said in a sardonic tone.

  “I- uh- I-you-”

  “I came out and started transitioning the summer before my freshman year of high school,” Bethany said. “My dad’s a wyer, so he helped me through all the name change stuff. There aren’t even all that many records indicating I was ever a guy, which is nice.”

  “I’m just…I’m sorry for doubting you, I just-”

  She shrugged. “It’s whatever, I’m stealth. My audience doesn’t know, and I’m pnning on keeping it that way.”

  “Does Kelsey know?”

  “Of course she does. She knew me before. We’ve been besties since elementary school.”

  “Whoa. And your voice-”

  “Practice,” she said as we approached our exit.

  “And your…your-”

  “My what?”

  “Your tracks of nd.”

  “Au naturale,” she grinned. “The women in my family are a bit on the chesty side.”

  “You lucky bitch,” I said.

  She chuckled as we made our exit and approached the elusive shining sub-city known as Hollywood. “I have often thought that of myself, yes. But it took work. I had to actually start eating regurly, for one thing. And do a lot of squats and crunches to make sure the fat went to the right pces. But here I am.”

  “Here you are,” I said, in absolute fucking awe of the poster girl for Transition Goals before my eyes. “But you gotta admit, I’m fighting a bit more of an uphill battle than you are.”

  “You’re 19, right? I started at 14. You’re fine.”

  “Okay, but that’s five years of prime puberty time for the testosterone demon to cast bck magic on me-”

  “I smmed into puberty hard at twelve, girl. I was shaving every day by the end of seventh grade, and I had a voice so deep I could’ve pyed a Sith Lord.”

  “... But you were so small.”

  “Because I had anorexia, yeah.”

  “Wait, literally?” I said.

  “Yeah-huh,” she said. The Grove slowly came into sight, and the miracle of a metered street parking spot came into view. “Lots of therapy. LOTS of therapy.”

  We parked and I got out, running my hands through my hair and hoping my proverbial foot would soon get dislodged from my mouth. “I’m sorry…I just…I feel like an ass.”

  “Don’t,” she said, coming up and wrapping her arms around me for a hug. “Seriously. Like I said, I don’t exactly go around advertising that part of myself. We live in a scary time for people like us. Now c’mon, let’s get our gender on and GO SHOPPING!”

  My back unstiffened and I returned the hug, and we slowly made our way to the crosswalk. “Okay. Thank you, seriously.”

  “Oh, and just so you know, I already think you’re super cute. And however you want to look, I’m here to tell you, the sky is the limit.”

  “You really mean that?”

  “Absutively-posilutely!” she squealed.

  The Grove was a sprawling collection of multi-story shops and theaters and restaurants, with a farmer’s market that put most others to shame marking the beginning while a massive fountain bursting with water dotted the center. Cobblestone roads connected white buildings with domed roofs as the whole pce hustled and bustled with patrons of all ages and backgrounds. A movie theater and a bookstore and countless clothes shops brought the pce together, and the various scents of fresh-cooked food and designer perfumes all sang through the air.

  “God, I haven’t been here in forever,” I said.

  “For serious?” Bethany said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you been here since you started transitioning?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well then we’ve gotta make up for lost time! C’mon, girly!”

  She grabbed me by the hand and pulled me at bracing speed towards the nearest boutique, a three-story pce that looked like a castle out of a fairy tale. She led me up two flights of stairs to the Halloween section, and we parsed through various selections amidst a humming cornucopia of fellow shoppers.

  We parsed through racks of costumes, standing on opposite sides. “Oh!” Bethany excimed, pulling something off the rack and then running over to me. She held up a superhero costume, a white unitard with a generous boob-window and a red cape. “Do you think Eli would like this?”

  I froze. Stared at her. Unsure of what my face looked like, but doubting it looked good.

  She waved a hand in front of my face. “You still there?”

  “Uh, yeah, I just, uh…what was the question?”

  “Do you think Eli would like this? I know he loves superheroes, and I’m not exactly an expert but I know this one in particur is a pretty well-loved cheesecake icon. It’s either this or green body paint, and I don’t think my skin would really agree with that.”

  “W-why are you asking me?” I gulped.

  “Because you’re his best friend?” Bethany said, cocking her head to the side. “Figured you’d have some insights there. Do you know what kinda girls he’s into?”

  Something tore open inside my soul at that moment, a fissure that burst and released a hot, molten truth into the entirety of my being. It burned me, as I realized what it was, as the conversation he and I had had a few months back on this exact subject melted away mental barriers with bright green fmes of envy.

  The way he’d offered to help me, all those times, without even having to be asked. The way he respected me, my boundaries, cared about what I wanted in a way other people didn’t. The fact that he could charm the pants off of anyone he met but only did so for other people’s benefit, usually mine. The fact that he knew all the things wrong with him and sincerely and earnestly wanted to improve himself, wanted to take the time to work harder and be his best self. The way he admitted when he was wrong and didn’t make a big deal out of it when he was right. His smile, his dorky smile whenever he talked about those cheesy superhero books he loved so much. The sheer enthusiasm he brought to every conversation. The way he found the best in things, even when they seemed hopeless. The way he didn’t even blink when he’d found out about me, had called me cute without so much as hesitating. The way he always wanted to pick me up when I was down, paid attention to me and figured out what I wanted without even asking directly about it. He was smart and kind and cheerful and genuine, and he had beautiful brown eyes and a slender body and a cute face and a low, smooth voice. And I took all of that and I pictured it cuddling up to Bethany and I…

  I just…

  I couldn’t stand it.

  I just couldn’t stand it.

  I turned around and walked away as I felt the tears well up behind my eyes. I didn’t stand a chance against this girl. I just didn’t. She was everything I was insecure about, every guy’s dream girl, everything I was too te to ever be able to be. She’d rock that costume and she’d effortlessly seduce Eli right in front of me and there would be nothing I could do to stop it and that was just how life worked.

  “Oh no you don’t!” Bethany said, grabbing my shoulder and stopping me short of the escator. I went limp as she spun me around, and she tilted her head once more as she drank in my facial expression. “Oh. Ohhhhh, now I get it.”

  “G-get what?” I asked.

  “You like him.”

  “I-I-”

  She arched one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows at me and gave a goofy grin.

  “Okay, I do,” I said, looking at the floor as my shoulders went sck. There it was, out there in the world for people to potentially hear. To bear witness to. I liked my best friend, like-liked him. I’d admitted it to someone, to two someones, one of them being myself. And it felt… It felt good. Relieving. Also terrifying, intimidating, painful…

  Fuck.

  She put an arm around me and led me away from the escator, back towards the racks of costumes. “Okay, so first off, I just wanna say, I totally get it. He’s sweet and cute and charismatic and all that good stuff.”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding, pleading with God to make this moment end so I could find a deep, dark cave to retreat into forever.

  “Secondly, I just want you to know that I’m gonna back off.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  She stopped in front of the costume rack and started pulling outfits of it, holding them in front of me. “You saw him first.”

  “Um… Sure, but that doesn’t seem like a very good metric by which to judge these things.”

  “Then what is?”

  “I mean, he should get a say in this, I’m pretty sure.”

  Bethany held a female magician’s costume in front of me, complete with fishnet stockings and low-cut white blouse. “Yes, obviously. But he’s known you way longer.”

  “He’s known me for a couple of months.”

  “And he’s known me for a couple of weeks,” Bethany said, holding up another costume, one with a simir pair of fishnets but accompanied by a bck unitard and a blue jacket. “Also, pretty sure he’s known you longer than that. How long has he been coming to your shop?”

  “For uh, five years, I think? But he and I only started interacting a few months ago, and besides I wasn’t… Wasn’t ME yet. Ya know?”

  “Yeah, I know,” she said, putting the punk rock biker chick ‘fit back on the rack. “Still, you’ve had a lot more time for all this to simmer for you. I barely know the guy. I’ve got some surface level attraction to him, sure. Would I love to get to know him better over dinner and movie, see if there’s anything real there? Sure I would. I’m a grown-ass bisexual woman and I’ve got eyes and a refined, diverse palette. But you… Yeah, that just wouldn’t be fair.”

  “W-why are you being so nice to me? Why are you doing all this for me?”

  “Like I said. Girls like us gotta stick together,” she shrugged and smiled. God, this girl was just an absolute saint, wasn’t she? It was so unfair. “Just so we’re clear, though: are you into girls at all?”

  “No, I’m straight.”

  “Okay, no chance of a threesome then, gotcha.”

  “Excuse me?!” I said, sure I was blushing redder than a stop sign.

  “Hey, like I said, I got eyes,” she said, pulling another costume off the rack. “And I can tell I’ve put you through the ringer, putting the moves on your man-”

  “He’s not my man.”

  “He’s not your man YET,” she said, poking my forehead with two fingers. She held up the newest costume, a sleeveless bck sequin romper that sparkled off the daylight leaking in from outside and offered a generously plunging neckline. What was it with superheroines always showing off their cleavage?

  … Actually, I retract that. If mine were that big, I’d wanna show them off too.

  “I don’t think he wants to be my man,” I said, taking the costume out of her hands and walking over to a mirror. I hated to admit it, but it was cute and sparkly and very much my color. Maybe this could be a good fit.

  “You sure about that?” she said, following me over to the long, rectangur vanity mirror pced in a corner away from all the shoppers.

  “I…okay, I have no idea.”

  “How much time do you two spend together?”

  “Uh… Not quite all day every day, but-”

  “He gives you a look sometimes. All I’m saying.”

  “... What kind of look?”

  “What do you think, what kind?” Bethany said, her eyebrows shooting up and down.

  I held the costume up in front of me and I…I GASPED. It looked- it could look-I might look-

  “Does this come with the shoes the character is supposed to wear?” I asked.

  Bethany pulled up a picture on her phone. “No, but it does come with the bracelets and the sso. And I’m pretty sure we can find a pair of silver boots in this pce somewhere.”

  I fingered my colr length hair and said, “I don’t have the right style for it though.”

  “But you already have the right color,” Bethany said, brushing an errant lock behind my ears. “And that matters more. We can get a wig if you really want. Or we can just get you into a salon for a blowout.”

  “I can’t afford that.”

  “Consider it a gift. One girl to another. Also consider it a thank you for letting me film in your shop for free.”

  No way. There had to be a catch. There was always a catch. “How are you this nice?!” I said. “How?! People are not this nice, especially not in this town.”

  Then she hugged me. “Oh, honey. You’ve really been through it, haven’t you?”

  “I… I…”

  “Go try the costume on. First we need to decide if you like how it looks on you. And we can take it from there. Okay?”

  I gulped, my mind swimming in a sea of disparate emotions: confusion, gratitude, panic, euphoria. All of them trying to pull me in different directions. I took a deep breath, and I went into the changing room and tried on the romper.

  I looked in the mirror and… I liked… I LOVED what I saw.

  I stepped out of the changing booth, and Bethany gasped and squealed with delight.

  “This one,” I said with a smile.

  ***

  The Next Day

  I stood in front of my house as Eli drove up and parked, nervously fiddling with my hair. I’d gotten my first blowout that morning, my hair shiny and smooth as it fell in waves around my face. It still wasn’t as long as I’d like it to be, but in the past couple of months I’d at least started to get an approximation of it. Hopefully in the next few it would finally start touching my shoulders. I stood nervously in my silver boots, hoping to God I wouldn’t facepnt from my dearth of experience in walking in heels. Bethany had been nice enough to give me a lesson that morning, but still, it completely shifted my center of gravity and robbed me of anything approaching arch-support.

  They looked so freaking cute, though. That much couldn’t be denied.

  “Holy crap,” Eli said, rolling down the driver’s side window and getting a good look at me. “You look incredible!”

  I gulped, trying to swallow the barrage of infatuated and lustful procmations desperate to escape from my chest. “Thanks!” I said as I walked around to the passenger’s side and climbed into the car. I got a good look at him in his costume: a bck and white body suit that hugged his frame in a very inviting way, with green accents on the arms and chest area and a green mask that looked vaguely like a crab. He smiled at me. Oh, that smile. Oh, goodness gracious, that smile. “You look great, too!”

  “Thanks,” he said. “This guy’s actually my favorite superhero, always wanted to go as him.”

  “Good for you, then.”

  “I approve of your choice as well,” he said as he shifted into drive and began slowly and carefully navigating around all the trick or treaters running about the quiet little neighborhood. “I thought you weren’t into superheroes, though?”

  “I mean, not hugely, but I thought it might be fun to try something different, and Bethany said I looked good in this one-”

  “Oh, she helped you pick it out?”

  “Uh… Well actually she picked it out for me.”

  “Huh, okay.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing just…she’s really something, huh?”

  I blinked, not sure I liked where this was going. “How do you mean?”

  “She’s just really cool.”

  “I mean, yeah, definitely.”

  “And I think it’s cool you two are hanging out more,” Eli nodded.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It just means that… Well, it means that if you want to spend even more time with her, I won’t be offended if that means you don’t have as much time for me.”

  I blinked again, and again, and again. “I mean…the same is true of you and her.”

  “How so?” he said as we pulled onto the road that would take us to the shop.

  “I mean… A guy like you and a girl like her. Might make a… A cute couple. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “...Um, I suppose. Are you sure you’re okay with that, though?”

  “Of course I am. I just…I just want you to be happy.”

  “I just want you to be happy,” Eli said. “Even if it’s with her.”

  I tilted my head to the side, ironically a bit like how Bethany always did, and said, “Uh, Eli?”

  “Samantha?”

  “You know I’m not into girls, right?”

  “You’re not?” he said, sounding legitimately shocked.

  “I’m straight.”

  “Oh. Oh, okay.”

  “Did you think I was into her?” I said, cocking my eyebrows, sure the extra thickness I drew into them gave the action extra emphasis.

  “Yeah, actually. You kept staring at her and talking about how hot she is-”

  “Because I was jealous, yeah,” I said, ughing at the sheer absurdity of what he was saying.

  “Jealous of what?”

  “Of how she looks, of how…”

  “Of how?”

  “Of how people look at her.”

  We came upon a red light, the car stopping, the world itself seeming to freeze as the sun finished setting into the western horizon. I felt his eyes on me, a sidelong gnce that hungered for the truth. “What kind of people?”

  SAY IT SAY IT SAY IT SAY IT SAY IT SAY IT- “Everyone. I mean, have you seen her? She’s beautiful.”

  His eyes went back on the road, the light turning green again. He pushed the car forward, heading onto the open road. Traffic was an absolute clusterfuck, slowing us to an inch-by-inch crawl towards our destination. Silence kept a stranglehold over the car’s interior, until, to my astonishment, he broke it: “Oh, fuck it,” Eli said, pulling over into a very clearly marked ‘no parking’ zone.

  “You can’t-”

  Eli turned to me, grabbed both my hands in his. “I like you.”

  A tiny squeak escaped my lips. “You-”

  “I LIKE you. Romantically. I have a crush on you,” he said, taking off his mask and staring straight into my soul.

  There were a million things I could have said. Should have said. Wanted to say. But the sentence that won the race into the nd of the audible was, “But why?”

  “But why? Are you serious? You’re adorable. You’re exactly my type. You’re fun to be around and I love talking to you. Whenever we hang out, all I’m thinking is, ‘man, I wish I could do this all the time.’ We have the same hobbies and interests, and yeah, we like them for different reasons, but that just makes it better because it means there’s more to talk about. And, I… I ADMIRE you.”

  “You what?”

  “I admire you. You’re fucking brave. You’re strong. You see what you don’t like about yourself and you actually fucking do something about it. Do you know how many people are so path-dependent that they never change anything about themselves or their lives, even when it’s actively making them miserable not to do so? Most people. But not you. You don’t just want to be better than you are, you do the work. And you’re loyal and kind and sweet and you care about other people way more than yourself. And the craziest thing is that you don’t recognize any of that because you’re humble. You’re so humble you don’t even realize you’re beautiful, that you’re getting more beautiful every freaking day, with every step you take. You have direction. That’s a hell of a lot more than I can say for myself.”

  My head spun so fast I could’ve been on a tilt-a-whirl. My heart raced faster than a coalition of starving cheetahs hunting a herd of gazelles. My jaw was a pile of broken china on the floor of the car. He- I- we- “What do you mean that’s more than you can say for yourself?”

  “I… Well, I’m a loser.”

  “You are not a loser.”

  “I’m going nowhere in life.”

  “You’re not going nowhere in life, Eli! Don’t say that about yourself!”

  “I’m already failing out of my trade school program after half a semester-”

  “Then you’ll figure something else out. I know you will. You’re a good person and a hard worker and you’re so fucking good at talking to people and speaking your mind and you care about making other people happy and YOU’RE GOOD AT IT. You admire me? I admire YOU. You’re amazing. You get people in a way that I just don’t. You know what to say, how to handle yourself. I’m only the way I am because YOU pushed me to become her. I only admitted to myself that I’m trans, only started transitioning, because you told me to be honest with myself. The fact that we’re here, having this conversation, that’s because of you. Because you make me feel like the person that I want to be. It’s why I… That’s why I like you too!”

  He flinched. Like he couldn’t accept it, couldn’t process it, couldn’t even comprehend the idea that I returned his feelings. But then again, I’d been in the same situation mere minutes prior. His Adam’s Apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed whatever he’d been about to say. Like all the words in all the world weren’t enough to convey what he felt. Like for once, the man who had more of a way with words than anyone I’d ever met was at a total loss for them.

  My smile flowered, and I said, “Well, I guess you really must like me, if I can render you speechless like that.”

  He chuckled, and opened his mouth again, but then closed it and just nodded happily.

  It was all so simple. I don’t even know why I’d tried so hard to complicate it. It was beautifully fucking simple. I just had to be honest with myself about what I wanted, and what I wanted-

  “I wanna kiss you now,” I said. “Is that alright?”

  He didn’t answer. No words were necessary. He put his hand under my chin, raised my face slightly, and brought his lips down onto mine. Fireworks exploded inside my mind, a menagerie of colors and sensations: the smooth wetness of his lips, the slight scratch of his stubble, the tender probing of his tongue as I let it enter my mouth and wrap around my own. The warm shaking of his hands around my face as they slowly steadied, as the simple crity and purpose of what he was doing calmed him. His weight shifted in his seat as he unbuckled himself and pushed further towards me. The musky sawdust smell of his body as he came closer to mine, the lean and tight feeling of his chest as I ran my hands up and down them.

  Finally, slowly, achingly, our lips parted ways. He cupped my cheeks in his hands and pressed his forehead against mine, and I held my palm to his chest and felt the gentle tremor of his heartbeat.

  “I think I know where you’re going,” I whispered.

  “Oh yeah? And where’s that?”

  “You’re going to a Halloween party with a beautiful girl,” I said. And I smiled, because I believed it. Because when he said I was beautiful, I fucking believed him.