It's only nine in the morning—my mom's likely on her way to work, and my stepdad's probably still sleeping. I'll have to be quiet when I enter—

Akila comes out of her own house—still super goth, still crazy haired and wearing her rollerblades. Effortlessly, she manages her way down the front step and waves to me. "Morning, Rozhan!" It's a chirp, like a bird. "Wanna walk with me?"

I hesitate for a minute—but a walk wold be good, Kohl and I really weren't at the gym for long. "Sure."

She grins and I walk over to her. "I'll go slow," she says. We start walking around the neighborhood—well, she's skating.

"You always up this early?" She asks me.

"No, just Saturdays," I say. "I go to the gym and spend like, three hours on the treadmill, pounding the liquids and then I sleep in Sunday.

She nods. "I wish I could sleep in Sunday—but my mom wants me to go to church with her tomorrow."

"Oh. Are you not religious?" I ask.

She shrugs. "Maybe—I don't think I'm Christian, though. I'm leaning towards Buddhism, because it looks cool and just kind of speaks to me, you know? But I haven't made any decisions or really researched enough to—I don't want to go, but my mom's still a Christian, and I think she really needs some Jesus now or something."

I nod. "The church around here is decent. Pastor Kay's pretty nice, she really tries to be a good person and stuff—like, she used to donate to the Salvation Army, and then she realized the Salvation Army believed homosexuality deserved like, a death sentence and allowed a trans woman to freeze to death and she was like, 'that's so un-Christian, fuck them,' except nicer, I guess? And she found out they did like, worse things so now she's helping set up a homeless shelter around here."

"Damn," she says. "Good woman."

"Yeah," I say. "I don't really go to church, but she's made it clear I'm welcome to attend if I ever feel like it."

Akila shrugs. "Then hopefully it won't suck—at the very least, we're getting breakfast afterwards. Cannot wait to get some eggs benedict."

"I like English muffins?"

Akila nods. "English muffins are great. Fuckin' love breakfast."

It's still warm, even though it's October—global warming, I guess. Or maybe just weird weather. I don't know—but it's's very sunny and there's a summer breeze that has yet to leave. Leaves have yet to fall, still green with a few being yellow, clinging to branches tightly.

A moment later, the wheels on the bottoms of Akila's feet hit something and she stumbles. I almost reach out to help her, but she falls to the ground. "Are you okay?" I ask.

She pulls a band aid out of her pocket and slaps it on her hand before getting back up—she wobbles a bit, but is just fine. "Yep!" She keeps skating. "So, um... hate to ask this, but uh...Is everyone at that preppy school a jerkass and I got lucky by meeting you and Deming first, or...?"

I remember the other day, she had been invited to sit with a group of girls at lunch. "Did you meet some people?"

She laughs nervously. "Sure did—some really mean people. They were um...Very racist. And very TERFy, and just—no."

"Yeah," I agree. "TERFs can go to hell."

She nods. "They were just really unpleasant. Didn't like them. Like this one girl—Minni or something—"

I interrupt her—it's totally rude, but in my mind, this is really important. "Minni?" I ask.

Akila blinks—she almost stops skating for a moment. "...or something."

I feel my face warm. "Sorry..."

"No, it's... cool—do you know her something?"

"We used to be friends—Deming and I and her."

"Oh."

"Yeah," I say. "We had a... falling out. To sum it up, we all liked Harry Potter and then the author went full on TERF, and Deming and I renounced her and the series because—well, he was pissed about Dumbledore being gay and Rowling just milking it for all it was worth but not putting it in any books or movies or anything. Minni didn't—and we didn't really care, because we assumed, you know, you can separate a person from their work... But that wasn't what she was doing, she just became a TERF and... I could see it in her eyes. She didn't really see me as a girl, or even a human anymore. It was like I was some sort of enemy. I could never be feminine enough for her to look at me as a girl, but every feminine action I did to look and feel more feminine was wrong to her."

"Damn," Akila says. "That sucks."

"Yeah—especially since we were like, some very progressive middle schoolers. Eventually, Deming and I told her that she was so ignorant with her own head up so far up her ass, she was wearing it as a hat and we didn't want anything to do with a bitch ass motherfucker like her and we were sick of her spewing bullshit. Or...Deming said that, and I told her I didn't want to be anywhere near someone who cared so little for me, and then we went and cried for a few hours in his bedroom, erasing her from our lives." We go in silence for a minute. "I don't like her much."

"I wouldn't either, she sounds like a real piece of work," Akila responds. "Trans rights?"

I smile. "Yeah."

I enjoy our walk.