Ophelie was walking, nervously, in the direction of the Girls’ Dorm to meet her best friend — Clara. They made a point of having a weekly movie night they dubbed the Dumb Film Festival, they started it two months into their first term at Uni.

  It was very effective for them to relax and blow off some steam accumulated during the week.

  This time, however, she wasn’t just walking for their weekly movie night, you see, Ophelie had a secret, she was a girl. Okay, it might sound obvious, but for the doctors who assigned her birth gender, it was apparently not!

  A secret she had carried, alone, for far too long. So this time, she was going to come out to her best friend, she was queer too — a lesbian, as far as Ophelie knew — she had high hopes her friend would accept her.

  She smiled as she remembered the memories of growing up together and the long hours of mischief they played together. All of this coalesced in a big smile and a flutter in Ophelie’s stomach as her crush bubbled to the surface for a minute.

  She gulped, hard, she was in front of her door, she just had to knock, come

  out, and kiss, right?

  That wasn’t so hard, was it?

  —

  After goddess knew how many minutes — or hours? — of silence and anxiety she steadied herself and worked up the courage to knock on the door… Just for it to open in front of her.

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  “Oh, E. You’re here, you’re late you know that?” Clara smirked.

  The view of her best friend — and crush — smugly smirking like that did things to Ophelie, but she kept on. “Yes, I’m here, and yes I know that. I was on time, I just kept looking at the door too long” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, and with a distinctive female quality which betrayed her voice training.

  Clara raised an eyebrow and muttered “‘Figures”, and let Ophelie enter the room.

  It was a fairly standard room, in the Leonard Nimoy‘s building, which housed the long-term dorms, for the girls, here at the Drama University of Northern Europe. The walls were far from bare, decorated tastefully with a lot of pride flags — so much she couldn’t see the one applying to her friend — and some old posters from her favourite shows.

  On the desk proudly stood a part-built model of the USS Enterprise, not the A, B, C, D, E, F or G. The original. Along with many sheets of paper, music, drama lessons, and lines to learn.

  “Okay let’s cho-” Clara started when Ophelie stopped her with a noise. More arching her eyebrows, Ophelie gulped again, it was now or never.

  “I have something to say yo-” Ophelie said as she was stopped when she felt a hug from her much taller friend. She was the butch lesbian, as opposed to herself, she was small for a boy, about 160 cm, which made her in the median height for girls her age.

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re trans, you’re a girl, she/her pronouns, the works, no shit Sherlock” Clara said, with her signature smug smirk.

  Ophelie was absolutely stunned. How? Why? Her mouth was ajar, and she failed to compute what was happening, she regained her composure when she heard the distinctive sound of an old-school camera taking a photograph of her.

  “Hey!” She said, pouting, to her friend. “Sorry E-, friend, you’re cute, but you’re oblivious as fuck if you thought we were not knowing it. I even think there were some bets on when you would come out.” Clara said, smiling softly.

  “But I’m proud of you, so how come I don’t know it already?” She finished petting Ophelie’s hair.

  “Know what?” the latter said, still pouting. “Your name.”

  “Oh! It’s Ophelie, like Ophelia but without the “a” sound it’s a long “ee” sound it originates from-” She said excitedly.

  “Yeah yeah, nerd, so proud of you Ophelie” Hearing her name said like that by her crush did a lot to the poor girl, “Let me prepare, and I’ll do some shitty magic to correct your body okay?” Clara grinned.

  “Thanks” Ophelie pouted, as Clara ruffled her hair.

  “Wait, magic?”