It's Friday morning and the bakery is just as warm as always. George stands behind the counter, but he can't stop yawning. "Morning, Rozhan."

"Morning, George." I pull out my wallet (which is absolutely nothing special, just about twenty dollars, my student ID and an ancient gift card to a store I've never even heard of) and manage to yank a dollar bill out of. I press it into his hand and put fifty cents in the tip jar—I believe tipping's important, but I'm broke.

George smiles as he hands me my muffin. "You should try the hot chocolate," he says. "Goes well with muffins and it tastes amazing."

I nod—I like chocolate. "I'll try to remember that for next time." I'll remember it, but I doubt I'll actually be able to buy it. I might be able to get some money from doing a few chores around the house, though—I used to get a weekly allowance, but my mom and stepdad just weren't able to catch up and I didn't like having them in debt to me. (Allowance has always been weird to me, since, when I was in elementary, almost everyone in my class was paid to read and the fact that I wasn't paid to read, read of my own free will and that my mom actually thought I read too much made me some sort of spectacle. I'm still never going to understand that.)

   I have math with Akila, actually and even though she's been here since Tuesday, she's sat with me, Deming and Kohl at lunch—I'm not sure if it's one of those things that's only temporary or if she's a part of the friend group, but I don't mind anyway. She plays the accordion. She knows how to waltz. Her hair is fucking awesome.

The day passes in a blur—and I'm kind of nervous. Deming notices and teases me nonstop. "Do you got a crush on her?" He asks.

"I don't think so?" I think I'm forming a crush on whoever's leaving the notes in my locker—which might mean I'm kind of shallow or something. Like, do I only like them because they're complimenting me and occasionally giving me gifts? I wish I knew. I still feel like I know so little about them. I don't even know their name—I don't know their gender, or their eye color, or their favorite color, or anything.

   Which makes me wonder—what do they know about me?

   He rolls his eyes but squeezes my shoulder as an act of comfort. "You'll be fine, Rozhan," he says. "And if anything happens you can call me. Call me and I will call Kohl and I will make him drive me so I can rescue you."

   Kohl nods in agreement. "The entire point of having a boyfriend is making them do favors for you," he says. "And also love."

   Deming smiles—but he smiles at basically anything Kohl says. "Yeah," he says. "Plus, you'll be fine. And then Halloween will come around and you'll be looking fabulous and Upside Down Question Mark Person will reveal their identity and then you'll..." He stops. "Well, I don't really know what will happen then, I guess that's up to you to decide."

   "Holy hell, I didn't even think about what will happen when I know who it is."

   He shrugs. "Make out?"

   "Making out is fun," Kohl says. "But I think she should work her way up to make out sessions and start small with..." He frowns, trying to think. "...politics?"

   "Yes," Deming agrees. "Have a quiet lunch alone and discuss politics. Ad then you start to hold hands, and you talk about hobbies and stuff, and you can work your way up slowly to make out sessions."

   I'm not sure if discussing politics is good for first dates—but also, I wouldn't want to date a Trump supporter, so I'd rather get in an argument on the first date, than waste a month on a republican.

   After school and after I walk home with Deming, my mom drives me to Lada's. "How was school?" She asks, taking a turn, over the chirp of the GPS.

   "I don't know," I respond.

   She frowns. "What do you mean you don't know?"

   "It wasn't the focus of the chapter," I respond, shrugging, slightly panicked. My mom doesn't respond—mostly because I didn't actually say that.

   "...Okay," she says. "Is this girl, Ada—"

   "Lada," I correct her.

   "Oh, that's a pretty name," she says. "Is Lada nice?"

   "Pretty nice," I say. I mean, she offered to do this. I just hope she is actually nice.

   "I'm glad you're still making friends," she says. "I know it must be difficult to make friends at the rich kid school..."

   "What? Because I'm an of color transgirl who is also the daughter of an immigrant and is on food stamps?" I ask. She glances at me, smiling tiredly. "No, I'm so popular, mom."

   She chuckles, but it's not really that funny. "You know if I could afford it, I'd buy you more girl clothes and make up. I would put up so many flags in your bedroom if I could."

   "It's cool, mom," I say. "But we should probably donate some of my guy clothes to Goodwill, at least, the ones I don't wear anymore."

   She nods. "Maybe next weekend we can go through your closet." The closest Goodwill is outside of town. "I'd say we could go to the Salvation Army, but..." She glances at me. "You know..."

   "Yeah," I say. "I'm glad we don't donate to them."

   "I am too."

   I go to the radio and try to turn something on—but all I find is commercials. "Hey, honey," she says.

   "Yeah?"

   "...I'm sorry," she says. "...About your father."

   "It's cool, mom." I rub at my arm.

   "No, it's not honey. He's dead."

   "Death happens, mom."

   "Doesn't make it suck any less." I busy myself with trying to find any music. "And I know if your father had survived the crash, and got to live long enough to see you grow into a beautiful young woman, he would have been just as proud as I am of you."

   "It's cool, mom," I say. I'm not ready to go there yet. "You're happy with my step-dad now."

   "I am," she says. "But I get he isn't your father. I get that. A-And I will always love your father, but..."

   "Mom," I say gently. "It's fine. This is how things are." I find music. It's country, but I don't really mind country. I have it just loud enough that it's a good volume, but the GPS is still louder so my mom can hear it. We drive the rest of the way in silence.

   We enter a much nicer neighborhood. Like, one with lawns that aren't dead and large houses. Lada's house, in particular has a long ass driveway on a slope that might qualify as a mountain. "Wow," my mom says, not even going to try to park on top of it, favoring the street. "...I'm sure she's very nice and all—but you're not allowed to friends with her when it snows, honey."

   "Yeah, that's fair." I do not look forward to climbing up there. I can’t imagine getting up there if it was covered in snow

"Are you sure you'll be able to get home by yourself?"

"Deming said he'd pick me up, he has a date with Kohl tonight anyway." Technically I'm gonna be third wheeling them, but it's towards the end of their date anyway and they both said they don't really mind. I don't mind bothering my friends, because I want them to bother me, and bothering your friends has to be a two way street.

   "Alright," she says. "Be home by ten at the latest, okay?" I lean over and kiss her cheek.

"Will do." I open the car door, grab my purse—a small, worn, brown leather bag that holds my phone, wallet, and a year old box of mints in case I like, need those. (I clean my purse out relatively often, but I never throw them away because I like mints, but I don't want to eat year old mints. I don't know.)

   Getting up the drive way is not fun. Maybe this is why Lada's so skinny. After like, fifteen minutes of climbing, someone opens the door and looks at me weird, before I even have the chance to ring the doorbell.

   The woman at the door is pale, with black, bobbed hair and high-ish cheekbones. "Are you...Lada's friend?" She's dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans, a rubber band on her wrist. She smells like bleach.

"Um, yeah," I say. "Are you her mother? I'm Rozhan."

"Oh no," she says. "I'm just the maid."

I pause. ...I did not expect to learn Lada's family hired a maid. "Oh, sorry." I feel stupid now, she doesn't even really look much like Lada. Or at all like Lada.

"It's fine," she says. "Come in, she was in her bedroom last time I checked."

The inside of Lada's house is kind of what I expected—hardwood floors, nice rugs, cream colored walls and brightly lit. "Just go up those stairs, first door on the right." She points to one staircase, but across the room there's another staircase. Weird, how many staircases do houses usually have? ...Maybe I just don't know much about houses, but I feel like the home improvement shows I watch with Deming should help me.

"Thanks," I say and start climbing up the stairs. I feel bad for the maid—she has to climb up the driveway to get here and she doesn't even live here (I assume. Are live-in maids a thing? I don't know.)

I knock on the first door to the right and it swings open. Lada visibly brightens, like she's happy to see me. "I was wondering when you were gonna get here."

"Your drive way is tall," I respond.

She laughs. "Yeah, that's what everyone says." She holds the door open for me. "Usually, Cili calls for me when I invite friends over, but she probably isn't in the mood right now to spend the better half of an hour calling for me until I answer."

Lada's bedroom is large—the carpet is white and the walls are painted an orange, yellowish color, while her bed is decorated in white, and shades of pink from more dusky shades to a dark rose color. ...You know, like a lesbian flag. Well, that one lesbian flag, because I think there's like three?

"It's nice to have you over, I haven't had people over in awhile." She has a large TV hung up on the wall and two bean bag chairs thrown on the floor, that dark rose color. In the corner is a good sized vanity, littered with all sorts of makeup and products.

"Wow," I say. "You have a nice room."

She basically beams with pride. "I know. I love the way it looks."

"Did you intentionally...?" I trail off. Is it rude to point out it looks like the lesbian flag?

She nods. "Everything is intentional." I don’t know if she actually new what I was going to say.

   She sits down on her bed and gestures for me to sit beside her. "So, since we're supposed to come up with a costume...Well..." She pauses and looks at me. "Do you have any ideas of what you want to dress up as?"

   "Not really," I admit. But honestly, I haven't really tried.

   "Well..." She grabs her laptop, flips it open and exits out of the web page she's currently in—it's a real time fan dub, whatever that is. "I was thinking we look up some ideas, I was looking online earlier and..." She types into the search bar 'costume ideas for women' and somehow, I'm very flattered to be considered a woman, instead of a girl.

   She clicks on a result that's purple, so she already had looked at it. "I thought some of these were pretty good, but since you're the one wearing it, I thought you should decide."

   There's a list of seventy. I don't want to go through all of them. "Why don't you just show me your favorites?"

   She nods and scrolls down. "I really liked this one." It is a pretty slutty costume. On the screen of her laptop, a woman with dark brown hair stares seductively at the camera. She's dressed in a white, skin tight dress with a sweet heart neckline covered in beads, but there's scarlet hearts all over the belt and hem line, with red thread tied into her hair and white stockings with red hearts on them. A pair of handcuffs dangle from her wrists. "Cardiac arrest."

   I actually laugh at that one. It's a good costume. "It looks nice, but I'm not sure if I can pull it off."

   "Sure you can," she says.

   I look at her—the woman on the screen is curvy, leggy and has a pretty good sized bust with that low neckline. "I don't think so. I feel a bit more like it'll look like it's on a kindergartner trying to look cute than a teenage girl trying to look sexy."

   She nods. "Good point, I guess. I don't know, I thought it was cool, but there's some other ones you'll like!"

She scrolls down. Cheese, cactus, pineapple, more cheese, skeleton, Harley Quinn. "Queen of Hearts?"

"I think that's really similar to the last one. ...And we'd have to waste a whole lot of playing cards for that."

She nods. "I'm hoping for some sort of duality, you know? Like, we can make you a costume out of some things, but then you can take the costume apart and have a bit more diversity in your closet."

"That would be so cool," I say. I'm in an ill fitting t-shirt covered in paint from when we tried to paint the living room.

She keeps scrolling. Cactus, more cactus, another pineapple. "Ghost?" She suggests. "...Too basic. What about this Queen of Hearts?"

"You really want me to be a Queen of Hearts that bad?"

"Yes. Be a queen."

I look at it. Honestly, it just doesn't look that good.

"Well, I can tell just by looking at you that you aren't impressed. What about..." She keeps scrolling. "Goth witch? Disney princess?"

The Disney princess is unrecognizable. The dress is pink and the model's blonde, but the cloth is so shiny it's almost blinding and the skirt is so short, if the model were to move, she'd flash us. "...Maybe not that slutty," I say. "I mean, nothing against slutty costumes or whatever, but I'm a bit new to dressing slutty."

She nods. "Alright. What about..."

We keep going. White Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland, another Harley Quinn, pumpkin, nurse, Wonder Woman, lion, soldier, a really sexy Mother Superior that has Lada blushing. "Police officer?" She suggests.

"Eugh."

"Fair."

Nerd, school girl, cat, assassin, zebra, another nurse, Red Riding Hood, mermaid, sailor, ninja, firefighter. We keep looking up lists similar to this one.

"Bunny?" She says.

"That's just latex. I might die, isn't latex hot?"

Goddess, pirate, steam punk, pilot, bride, witch, lumberjack, maid, Santa, cleopatra.

"You know," I say. "We may have passed a thousand Red Riding Hoods, but..." I point to one of the three on screen. "That one looks good."

The model has yellow hair tied into pigtails, but she's wearing fishnet leggings, a pair of ankle high boots, black and white checkered dress with a red choker and a red cape over it all. For inspiration, it actually looks really good.

"Ooh, I like that one!" She exclaims. "Plus, capes are cool."

"Capes are cool!" It's not an original costume, it's not a great idea, but it's an idea and one I think I can pull off. Maybe I should have said something about the dozens of previous Red Riding Hood outfits, but Lada isn't complaining about that.

"I think you'd look good in red," Lada says.

I wouldn't really know—I don't actually have a lot of red in my closet. Then again, I don't really have a lot of clothes in my closet.  ...My school uniform has a lot of red, but I don't feel like it counts. At least, I don't count it—but I feel like Lada should?

"Where do we buy anything that even remotely resembles this though?" I ask.

"We'll shop around," Lada says and she turns to me, grinning wickedly. "I have a car."