The one thing I hated the most about drinking was my inability to sleep in when I’d been out the night prior. Not that I could say that like I was a veteran binge drinker or whatever, but in my limited experience I would always wake up around eight thirty. No idea why, but that’s what happened.

Speaking of happenings, what had happened last night? I didn’t even remember getting back into bed, just… wait, oh no I remembered.

“Fuck!” I swore loudly, then clapped a hand over my mouth in surprise.

I’d been kissed by Lianna! Then I’d kissed her back! Then… oh my gosh, she put her fingers in my mouth and I freaking sucked on them! What in the world? I was never getting drunk again. At least I didn’t wake up in bed with her… did I?

I scrambled up and out from under my comforter and quickly looked around, breathing a sigh of relief when I didn’t find Lianna in bed with me. That would have been too much. Wait, we’d also said things to each other! She thought I was pretty! I thought she was pretty! Oh damn, I thought a girl was pretty in a very… romantic way. No, romantic wasn’t the right word, surely? Surely not? Oh crap it definitely was.

“Well hello, that was the exclamation of a Gladie that did something crazy last night,” Aimee remarked, leaning against the edge of the partition in a cami and her underwear.

Oh no, now I was totally checking Aimee out too! Gosh and I remembered what she looked like under  that underwear! What was wrong with me now?

I gave a squeak in response and dove back under my comforter. What had Lianna done to me? She’d awoken something within me and now I was left to deal with the life altering consequences! That girl! Damn her and her… annoyingly kissable lips and her dirty looks and her questing fingers. Oh gosh, questing fingers… what if that had happened in a different place on my body?

Oh now I was thinking about that, and my face was probably going incredibly red. Damn I can’t believe we just… we did those things last night! I can’t believe I had liked it! Dang and there was a not insignificant part of me that wanted to storm down the hallway and demand that we do it again. Oh crap Lianna lived in the same building as me!

Aimee was laughing at me from outside the covers covers too, and she asked in a singsong voice, “Oh Gladie… why don’t we go find some fast food and talk about our adventures last night huh?”

“I’m not sure I want to talk about it, but alright,” I groaned, half rolling and half dragging myself out of bed.

“Whoa, okay uh,” Aimee blurted, quickly turning away.

Oh. I was topless. Must have forgotten to put something on top when I got into bed last night. I was always forgetting about that part. I gave my boobs a little poke to make sure they were happy, because the damn things were always just mysteriously hurting. Still growing was what I was told, but at this point I’d like it if they’d stop. Enough was enough!

“Sorry,” I laughed sheepishly, hunting for a bra to put on.

“Not a problem,” she chuckled back. “They’re nice.”

That brought a little heat to my cheeks. My roommate thought my boobs were nice. Still, they could do to calm down, the way they were growing.

“Yeah, I really wish they’d stop growing. I wanted them so badly, but not any bigger than this please ,” I sighed, then realised my mistake and clamped my mouth shut.

“You’re still growing? Like, more than just the little bit we get at this age? How?” she asked, still facing away.

“Um… they only started growing about two years ago,” I said with a grimace.

I guess we were going to have this conversation now. Oh dear. Please be okay with it Aimee. Please don’t be awful.

“Okay, you’ll have to explain that to me. Were you a late bloomer?” she asked inquisitively.

I found my bra and quickly popped it on, then looked down at myself. I was wearing nothing but a bra and bikini briefs. Whatever, I didn’t mind her staring at me while I was like this. She’d probably want to, even if she didn’t say as much, given the impending topic. My heart was too dead from a night of drinking to beat with any more speed, but I felt the anxiety continuing to rise up just the same.

“Bra is on,” I said, then sighed shakily and continued, “Yeah, you could definitely call a late bloomer. I’m transgender.”

“Wait what? Really?” she asked, spinning around to stare at me in surprise.

Her gaze did a quick travel down my body, pausing for a moment on my flat groin, then back up to my face.

“You look…” she started, then winced.

“I know,” I shrugged. That was the first thing people always said. They had this image in their head of what a trans woman looked like and… I wasn’t it. “I look cisgender. A lot of people have this preconception about what we look like. Transgender women, I mean, and the reality is that we come in just as many shapes and sizes as any other woman.”

“Right, sorry,” she said awkwardly. “You uh, you’ve had… nevermind, not going to say that. I can see something though with you standing in your underwear.”

“Yeah,” I nodded with a smile. “It’s okay. I’m open to questions.”

She locked eyes with me for a moment as if to make sure I was okay with questions, then asked, “So you said it’s been two years? That must be crazy right? Going from one to the other?”

“It is pretty wild, although I pretty much knew I was a girl since I was like five, and just had to lie to myself and others for most of my life. I finally cracked when puberty hit and things started happening that I absolutely hated,” I smiled, looking around for more clothing to put on.

“Yeah I can’t imagine, but I know I’d hate it if things started getting all hairy on me without my permission,” she laughed quietly. “What about people? I hope they were okay with it all. Oh wait, and I’m super behind you about it! Gladie’s still Gladie!”

“Thanks,” I said, giving her a genuine, heartfelt smile. I was still a little drunk I think, the alcohol not having worked its way out of my system, and I felt a little misty eyed that Aimee was being so chill about it.

It wasn’t often I had someone who was just genuinely happy for me and okay with it all. So often people just paid lip service support, but then slowly distanced themselves from me. Most of my extended family had been like that. Openly supportive, but you could tell in their heads that they were thinking very different thoughts.

“As for the people,” I said, getting ready to break the next little tidbit of info. “Not many people from before even know. That aren’t my family I mean. I hid it during my last year of high school, and then kinda stopped talking to everyone. They’re here now though, you’ve um, met them.”

“They are? As in, here in the dorms… oh no, please tell me it isn’t Jack and Finn and the others,” she gasped, realising where I was going with this.

“The same,” I nodded. “That’s why Finn rushed off with me on Wednesday. He figured it out. The other two haven’t though.”

“No way… that’s… wow, the drama! Oh this is exciting! Wait, I shouldn’t be excited about this, but it’s just so juicy, ” she exclaimed, her eyes going wide and twitching around as she stared off into space and unravelled all the implications. “No way! That annoying one! Uhh… Ryan! He was hitting on you! He doesn’t know and he was hitting on you! Oh my god!”

I grimaced and nodded, groaning out my next words, “Yeah that was hella awkward.”

“I’ll say! Oh my god, the look on his face when he realises! I have to be there! To support you, but also for the entertainment!” she said excitedly. “I’ll bring my can of mace, just in case! Hey that rhymed.”

“Uh, thanks,” I laughed, rolling my eyes at the thoroughly Aimee-like response to this.

I really hoped the can of mace wouldn’t be necessary, but… well I’d heard a lot of horror stories about similar situations. Best to be safe.

“Wow, that means I’m totally dating one of your friends! Oh, you have to tell me all of Jack’s dirty secrets so I know what to watch out for. Is he secretly a serial killer?” she asked, her eyes wide and eager.

“Why do you sound excited by the prospect that he would be a serial killer?” I guffawed, trying and failing to get my jeans on as I laughed.

My foot was stuck in the damn leg of the jeans. Why did I like tight jeans so much? Oh wait, it’s cos I had great legs.

“I don’t know… that’s really weird huh? Still, it would make life interesting!” she chuckled. “Back to the point though, what’s his biggest flaw?”

“He’s kinda selfish,” I said with a shrug, not really knowing what else to say about him.

“Oh no! I was totally getting selfish vibes from him too! This sucks!” she whined, leaning back dramatically against the partition. “Another one written off. Where are the non-shitty guys at?”

“Taken or gay,” I laughed.

The best one of my three friends had turned out to be Finn, and he was definitely gay. It was cute, maybe I should wing-woman for him some time.

“Too true,” she sighed, looking thoroughly dejected.

“I’ll keep a look out for you though. I think that Yavin guy was nice, back at the party,” I said thoughtfully, trying to think of any other guys I knew who were both nice and available. “I think there might be a guy in one of my classes too, if you’re okay with artsy guys. You know the ones with the beanies and the slightly crazy clothes.”

“Yeah I know them. I guess I can give that field of guyology a shot,” she said, still looking depressed about her guy prospects.

I had to laugh at that guyology thing too, wow Aimee was too much fun.

“Okay I’m dressed, let’s go!” I said, motioning towards the door.

I was nervous as all hell about telling Aimee what had happened, but I needed to talk about it too. I needed to get it off my chest, to see someone else freak out like I was internally over the whole thing. We’d kissed, and then some sort of sexual but not sexual thing that still had heat fizzing about my body whenever I thought about her fingers.

I kept my mouth shut about it until we got to some random chain burger place, where we ordered a bunch of gross food. I’d need to start running again soon, that was for sure.

Aimee went first, telling me all about how the others had all decided they were going to go into town after I said I wasn’t going to be back, but they never made it. There was a lot, something about making out with a guy she didn’t know, which was a little confusing to me since she was meant to be dating Jack. Apparently that wasn’t an issue since they weren’t exclusive with each other.  Dating was weird.

She finished by telling me how she got back to our room and found me already passed out in bed, so she just went to bed too.

“So what had you held up huh? I thought maybe you found Finn, and you two were off sucking face, but I don’t find that likely now that you’ve told me you know each other. It’s a lot harder to get to kissing when you have history,” she told me, like a sage imparting her wisdom to an apprentice.

I gave a little chuckle though, because Lianna and I definitely had history. I decided to tell it out as it happened, and said, “So you know Lianna?”

“Oh no, what did she do?” Aimee frowned.

She did so much. With her tongue, with her fingers. Gosh it had been nice. I had to shake my head to clear the image of her deep brown eyes from my mind.

“She was passed out in the backyard of that house, alone, ” I said, emphasising the last word.

Aimee’s eyes went wide and she leaned forward. “No shit. Why? What did you do?”

I did so much also… with my tongue, and my lips… Damn, why couldn’t I stop thinking about her? I wanted to see her again.

Instead of skipping to kissing, I just shrugged, feeling my cheeks light up a little preemptively. “I went and sat with her, to make sure no one did anything funny. Except I ended up passing out too. Woke up when she stirred next to me.”

“Wow that must have been awkward!” Aimee laughed, her eyes eager for more. “What happened?”

“We talked… and um… she told me I was hard to hate, because she thought I was pretty,” I said with a shy laugh.

Remembering again how she’d said I was pretty, the way she’d smiled, it made my heart do a little stutter step.

“She what?” asked my friend, a little too loudly, then lowered her volume to continue, “ She said that? She thinks you’re pretty?”

“Yeah, then she told me I was pretty again, and that she was jealous of my abstract style,” I told her, then took a deep breath to say this next part. “Then I told her that I thought she was pretty, and that I was jealous of how good she was at realism.”

It was true too, I’d seen it from the start. She was so damn pretty, I wanted to draw her smile, I wanted to spend hours getting her eyes just right… and I wanted to touch that face. I wanted to smile back into those eyes. Oh gosh. I was so totally lying when I said I didn’t like her, but how did we back down now from all this antagonism between us?

“ No way this is crazy, did you two like, make friends?” she asked incredulously.

“Um… not exactly,” I said, feeling myself go full red. I don’t think friends kissed each other like that.

“Nooo…” Aimee gasped, seeing my blush.

“We kissed , or made out or whatever,” I whispered, feeling my stomach explode into flutters again at the memory.

Oh gosh, I really wanted to do that again with Lianna. The slick softness of her lips on mine, the way she’d pinched mine with hers. Her tongue, slipping through to flicker against mine in greeting. I started to sway and smile as I remembered it, how she’d smelled of girl, alcohol and a faint wisp of some flowery deodorant .

“Okay, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you liked it, just judging by that dreamy smile,” Aimee giggled, a grin of her own forming.

“It was so good,” I said shyly, looking down at the table to poke at a loose fry.

“Well that settles the matter of who you’re into then,” she smiled. “You’re into Lianna. That’s an awkward one .”

“It gets… more,” I said, biting my lip in a vain attempt to stave off another wave of blushing. It didn’t work. “She um, okay this is weird, but I found it… I don’t know, it  was really dirty and kinda hot. Anyway, she stuck her fingers in my mouth, and then I licked and sucked on them.”

“She… what?” Aimee asked, her eyebrows rising into her hairline. “You sucked on her fingers?”

“Well, it sounds weird if you say it like that!” I squeaked in embarrassment.

“Whatever you’re into, I won’t kink shame,” she smiled. “I’m honestly still trying to wrap my head around you and her even speaking to each other without getting all angry.”

“I can’t get angry when she smiles at me,” I murmured, playing with the fry again.

“Oh that is so so cute, and so very gay,” she sighed, placing a hand over her heart. “I was right! You did have a crush! It was just on Lianna, not Finn!”

“Oh no, is it a crush?” I asked worriedly. “I always heard about crushes being a huge deal.”

“That was in high school where everyone is hormonal as fuck,” she said, patting my arm. “It’s fine. Crushes are normal and some people get them all the time.”

“Aimee, I’m hormonal as fuck! I’m still not used to estrogen brain and like, it messes with me all the time! I’m like a damn horny fourteen year old girl with a few extra years of life experience!” I exclaimed, then lowered my volume and put my hand to my mouth when I realised I’d just sworn again. Why was I swearing so much? I didn’t like it.

Oh no, Aimee was totally rubbing off on me. Wait, crap, that was really dirty! Oh and my hand was right where Lianna’s had been before she… Ahhh! I made an incoherent squeaking sound and sank down as far as I could go in my chair. Was I overheating? Was it warm in here? Oh gosh I needed something to drink. A liquid that didn’t come from a person!

“I need a drink. I’m thinking about so many things and I feel all warm, and I can’t think around all these things that I’m thinking in my head. It’s too much! Why can’t I stop thinking about it all? It’s like suddenly I’m seeing everything differently and it’s all cascading into this big ball of horny in my brain! I can’t stop! I just thought about you rubbing yourself off on me and then I thought about Lianna and her fingers and it’s making me explode!” I said in a rush, doing a full squeaky ramble.

Wait crap, I mentioned the thing about her rubbing off on me! Oh no! My mouth was totally out of control!

“Whoa there girl!” Aimee laughed, standing up. “I’ll get you some water, can you stay as a solid until I get back? No melting.”

“I’ll try,” I mumbled, my entire being now made up of pure embarrassment as I hung my head to avoid her eyes.

She wandered off to get some water for me, and I sat here trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Was I seriously being gay for Lianna? She was really pretty, yeah… and I couldn’t stop thinking about wanting to kiss her again, and she had a great smile. Those were all very new ways of thinking for me, and I wasn’t sure if I was okay with it. At least it could slow down a little… give me time to figure out how to deal with mother.

Mother… she was going to hate this. She had ideas of my marrying some handsome rich guy who’d rise through some company’s ranks to CEO and then go on to become an entrepreneur or something. Just like she had. Originally, I’d had the handsome rich guy role in that fantasy, but with the spectre of transgender suicide rates hanging over her, she’d at least been supportive on that front. Maybe Aunt Vicki could do that talk again but with lesbian suicide rates? Jeez that was morbid .

There was no denying one thing though, labels and lesbianism or no. I was attracted to Lianna. My rival in art, the girl who’s laptop I broke, and the girl who hadn’t stopped glaring at me. The girl who I was meant to hate… but I couldn’t hate her! I mean, we’d said we didn’t like each other. Could you want to kiss someone you didn’t like? This was all so confusing.

“Here you go!” Aimee laughed, placing the cup in front of me. “Complete with ice to cool down that overheating little noggin of yours.”

“Thanks,” I said, grabbing at the cup like it was a lifeline.

“So how are you feeling?” she asked, her tone both amused and gentle. “Still want me to get off against you?”

“No! I’m confused. Scared of my parents. Also I think I really want to kiss Lianna again,” I said, staring at my drink and smiling as I said the last part.

I really wanted to kiss Lianna again.

“Well, hopefully she wants that too. You should ask her,” my friend said like it was the easiest, most normal thing to do ever.

I looked up and blinked at her like she was crazy. “Just ask her? Are you kidding? That’s way too scary!”

“Well, you’re both girls, so you can always wait for her to ask you instead,” she shrugged, a smirk growing on her face. “Or you’ll both be useless and neither of you will ask.”

“I think that one is the most likely,” I sighed, feeling my stomach drop out at the thought of not  getting to kiss Lianna again.

“Hey, I’m sure we can get you both drunk again. Make sure you end up in her bed next time though, that way neither of you will be able to back out of talking about it!” she laughed, her eyes twinkling with pure evil as she watched my face grow red all over again.

“Aimeeeee!” I squealed, hiding my face.

This was too much. Now I was thinking about Lianna with no clothes on! Naked! Naked Lianna and her fingers and… oh gosh. Too much, too much! It was far too much, but I also couldn’t stop thinking about it! I had images of her pushing me down onto the bed, unhooking my bra and leaning down to… Oh dear gosh.