Saturday afternoon, I'm at the gym with Kohl. This is normal for us. I'm in athletic shorts and a woman's tank top, one of my eight women's articles of clothing, not counting my school uniform. We're side by side on two treadmills. "So, who do you think it is?" He asks, because of course, him and Deming tell each other everything and Deming likes to talk about him, much like how when I have a story to tell acquaintances in other classes, it always involves Deming (half of my class legit thought we were dating and was very concerned when they saw him kiss Kohl in the hallway).

"Well, I know they go to our school," I say.

He nods. "So, we have a little under six hundred candidates."

"Well, I know they're not transphobic," I say to him. "Because they know I'm trans, and refer to me by the right pronouns and name and have mentioned that they know I'm trans and that that doesn't stop them from having a crush on me."

"...Well, you can cross out this one chick in my math class, Abby. She's like—" He makes his voice higher pitched, prissy sounding, making it clear he does not like Abby. "—'Argh, if I ever see a guy in here, I'll kick him out! I'm a Christian bitch who doesn't believe in kindness or mercy and you just know that the picture of Jesus in my home has him white when he was obviously a Jewish, black man!'" I snort. "Some people, man."

"Good news—we can cross out this one guy in my math class."

"So, we're down two people," he says. I start to slow on the treadmill, catching my breath while I take a drink of water. "...A little less under six hundred now."

I shrug. "I should get more notes eventually," I admit. "So maybe I'll get more clues." That seems unlikely, though—I don't think ¿ means to be leaving clues for me, whoever they are. I feel like they're a 'he' but maybe it's just wishful thinking.

Kohl shrugs beside me. "Hopefully. God, you know what this sounds like?"

"A romance novel? Yeah."

"Am I that predictable?" He asks.

"No," I say. "...But your boyfriend is, and the two of you are a lot alike." I mean—not really, but it's like bits of them have rubbed off on each other. "...Hey, speaking of Deming, have you noticed that there's something off with him?"

Kohl presses a button on the treadmill. We go to one of the cheaper ones, meaning it's also kind of crappy, but it works better than going for a jog or something. In here, it's air conditioned and they have protein drinks that are only like, two dollars. I mean, most of them are nasty, but there is one I like and Kohl and I usually share it. He presses it again and then looks around. Finally, it starts to slow down and he can look at me. "I have, actually. Do you know what's up?"

I sigh. "I wish." I run my hand through my hair—my treadmill comes to a stop and I step off. Kohl does the same but his treadmill is slow to react to the button he pushes. "He's been acting weird, and I think it involves art class?"

He nods—Deming loves art class just as much as Kohl and me. He divides his time for his social life in thirds—one third is for me, one for Kohl, and one to sitting in a room full of people with canvases while he stares a naked chick's breasts, trying to get the shading right when he can never seem to. He says nothing sexy goes on in there, but it's hellishly warm and it sucks but the things he does for his art. "I don't know. I've asked him about it but he always dismisses it. I can't help him if he doesn't let me."

We walk towards the counter near the entrance. "You have a dollar?" Kohl asks me. I hand him the dollar I brought with me just for this. "Be right back." He walks towards the counter effortlessly—when I have to buy things, my feet don't move and I'm fighting every step, and then I can't talk.

I wait near a table, but I feel weird sitting down until Kohl sits down, just to be sure it's alright. A person at a nearby table looks over at me before coming over. "Hey, stranger." They have that tone that means we're not strangers—I recognize them but I'm not sure where from.

"Hi?" She smiles. She really does look familiar—and also, really pretty. She's skinny, the ends of her hair are wild and curly (with a few pink streaks) and she's wearing a bright pink sports bra and black shorts. "Oh, wow, you're really..." Pretty. I was going to tell a stranger that she was pretty. But I don't even mean it in like, a flirty way, I'm just trying to compliment her, but I don't want it to come out weird. She might think it's weird, oh god, oh god, oh god.

She raises an eyebrow. "Really what?"

My heart pounds—on second thought, maybe I do mean it in a flirty way? I kind of just want to have a girl friend, you know? A friend that is a girl, so we can be two girls hanging out, but it's really difficult to at school—it's also really difficult, because I might honestly be capable of falling in love at the drop of a hat. "...Pretty."

She giggles, but she's not even blushing or anything. "Thanks! I gotta say, I love that hair clip you're wearing." She taps the side of her head and I reach up and immediately find it. "It's really...pretty."

"Thanks." Okay—she has abs, I notice. ...Is that a normal thing to notice? She still looks so familiar, but I can't place her.

"I didn't know you go to this gym?" She says.

"Oh, yeah, about once a week, with Kohl."

Speaking of which, Kohl is on his way over, with two straws and a protein shake in hand. "Who's your friend?" He asks me.

She reaches out her hand and they shake. "Gina," she says. "You're Kohl, right? Deming's boyfriend?"

He nods—and I note that I've absolutely never head the name Gina in my life. "As a matter of fact, I am." He whips out his phone, frowns and puts it back in his pocket, suddenly disappointed before taking a sip of the protein drink and then handing it to me. He always hands it to me, because unlike him, I can hold it without wanting to drink it all.

Gina sighs. "I should probably get going, I've been here for hours." She stretches—her back pops. "I'll see you around, Rozhan, bye Kohl." She gets up and leaves—and Kohl looks at me.

"She seemed nice."

"She was," I agree. "...I have no idea who she was."

"She sure seemed to know you," he says. He sits down where she was sitting and I sit across from him. "I think I've seen her around school. Maybe she's the one?"

I try to think and consider it, but not only do I have very little evidence to point to anyone. "The notes make it seem like they're shy, like they're scared to talk to me. She seemed to have no trouble speaking to me." He nods, considering this.

"Okay," he says. "Well..." He frowns. We sit in silence while we (read: he) tries to brainstorm ideas to get my secret admirer to show themself. "Okay, so Halloween is around the corner. What if we dress you up as...I don't know, something hot, and you'll be so hot, other people will seek you out and try to flirt with you."

I finish off the last of the protein shake—he was thinking for awhile. "How's that gonna let us know who they are?"

"Well," he says. "It might not. But that's the beauty of it—it doesn't have to work. Either way, a bunch of people express interest in you, which will either lead to you hooking up with someone and hopefully entering a lovely relationship or, seeing that other people are interested in you, will drive out Mister Upside Down Question Mark so they..." He pauses. "Well...Maybe Mx. Upside Down Question Mark? ...I don't know. Um... Anyway! They'll totally have to confess their like, undying love to you afterwards?"

"I like the idea," I say slowly. "But how am I going to get a costume? It'd be expensive and really difficult, I mean—look at me. How am I gonna rock a slutty Halloween costume?"

He sighs. "I don't know—do you have any girl friends who might be able to help?"

"No," I sigh.

"Well, I'm out of ideas."

Despite the fact he's out of ideas, he still tries to come up with some when he walks me home—he read a statistic, online, that trans lesbians of color are more likely to be victims of some sort of violence, and while I'm not exactly a lesbian (and I don't think you can tell by looking at me what my sexuality is) I don't really like walking home by myself anyway. (Also, it's a half-assed excuse to be able to visit Deming because I live so close to him, really.)

"What if we..." He pauses. "...Pay people to come and flirt with you?"

"Expensive."

"What if we blackmail them instead?"

"I'm not good at blackmail, Kohl." It's bright out. I look both ways before I cross the street because I'm cautious like that and Kohl pulls out his phone again before sliding it right back into his pocket. "And neither are you! Are you kidding, you're the type who escorts flies out of the house instead of swatting them, you could never threaten to do something bad to someone, let alone do it."

"That fly didn't do anything to me—"

A car rounds the corner at the speed of light (even though there's clearly a stop sign on the corner!) and passes us by, missing us by inches. "Hey!" I shout. "Watch where you're going!" Just to be an asshole, the driver throws a styrofoam cup out of the window and onto the sidewalk, still speeding like the devil.

"Some people just really shouldn't be behind the wheel," Kohl sighs.

"Yeah," I say. "I'm like, eighty percent sure that that's the asshole who goes like, eighty nine miles per hour around the neighborhood at three in the morning. One of these days, they're gonna kill someone."

"People are idiots," Kohl says—we have stopped in the middle of the road. Arguably, we're the idiots for doing something like that, but I mean—we are people.

I grab the cup as we pass by and throw it into a trash can. "Granola girl," Kohl says, even though I don't like granola.

"What the hell does that mean?"

He pauses. "You don't know what—Rozhan, we have got to get you into TVTropes, that's like, half of the things I talk about with Deming."

"And the other half is how much you two love each other?"

"No. A half is TVTropes, a quarter is how good looking he is, and the other quarter is how much we love each other."

I roll my eyes, but stop—we've reached my house, but right next to it is a moving truck. "...Is someone moving out?"

Kohl glances at me. "There's been a 'For Sale' sign on the front lawn for weeks, I notice it every time I visit you or Deming."

"...So someone's moving in?"

Kohl looks at the two people slowly moving a couch through the front door. "...How can we know for sure?"

"I mean, I guess it's obvious, but..." I hadn't even noticed a sign.

"You didn't even notice your neighbors were moving out?"

"No—If I had, I would have celebrated, they were old and racist and gave one woman across the street hell for having an abortion, and it was right after her husband left her for a twenty year old yoga instructor, she was in a very fragile place as was, they had no right sticking their nose in her business." Kohl seems to notice I am visibly angry at the elderly couple that are obviously long gone by now—but I don't think they're dead or anything. "I am very passionate about women's reproductive rights." My tone might have sounded a bit defensive.

"As you should be," he says. "You're a woman."

"I am." Though, technically, I don't think I really have to worry about my own reproductive rights, since I, you know...am trans.

We reach my house. "Alright, I'm gonna go kiss my boyfriend. You have a good one, Rozhan."

"Bye, Kohl."

The house is warm when I enter—my stepfather's in the kitchen. The oven light is on, but our oven isn't very clean, I don't know why. "Hey, Rozhan," he says, putting on an oven mitt that is a bright, neon orange—it basically lights up the entire house. "Did you notice the new neighbors?"

"As a matter of fact, I did." I choose not to mention that I almost didn't and hadn't even noticed the elderly couple—or, as my stepdad called them, Those Assholes—had moved out.

"Good." He opens the oven and pulls out a tray of cookies. "I noticed that there's a girl your age, and I'm very eager to have any neighbors that weren't Those Assholes." He rests it on top of the stove and pulls the oven mitt off before shutting the oven off. "So, I thought, to make them like us, I could force you to deliver them some cookies."

I nod. "What if they're allergic?" I ask.

"They don't have nuts or anything."

"What about gluten?" I ask.

"...They might have gluten. Tell them it has gluten, I can't accidentally kill another neighbor again, Rozhan." He grabs a spatula and tries to pry them off the tray—he never seems to remember to grease it or anything before putting it in the oven. He looks me over. "...Maybe take a shower first before you try to talk to her?"

"Okay." I turn on the kitchen light—my stepfather never remembers to turn on the kitchen light, either. My mom sure has good taste. "Why are you sending me...?"

"Because you don't have a lot of friends," he says. "I mean..." He sets the spatula down and turns to face me, backtracking. "I know you have friends, but I know you specifically want girl friends. I mean, friends that are girls, you know?" He's very, very bad at this, being a step-dad. But I don't think I'm good at being a step-daughter anyway. "I mean, if you don't want to, you don't have to and we can just eat these cookies, but I thought I should try to do..." He hesitates—the spatula is back in his hand and he waves it around. "...something that seemed fatherly?"

I nod. "Okay, then. I'll go take a shower."

Even though I saw him turn the oven off, I go ahead and double check it really is off so the house doesn't catch fire while I take my shower.