About thirty minutes later at Max’s house, both his parents sat at the dining table talking to each other while Caroline and Max took some boxes upstairs.

“You know Mrs. Brenda is nice and I can’t wait. I really love her cooking” Caroline said dropping the set of boxes she was carrying and opened the door in front of her.

“My mom you mean, what about mommy then. Isn’t she nice too?”  Max replied as he trailed behind her. He walked through the door that Caroline had opened.

“Well Mrs. Lucia...” Caroline continued but was cut off abruptly by Max.

“For heaven’s sake Line, I don’t call your mom Mrs. Mabel or Mrs. Owen” Max taunted as he arranged each box on top of the other neatly and carefully on the floor.

“Well excuse me for being the respectful one”

“Ugh” Max rolled his eyes and he continued arranging the boxes carefully in the room that belong to his parents. The room was lavished and was painted lilac which was obviously his mom’s favorite color. The bed was a large king size with a heart shaped headboard while the door to the closet was just a few steps away from the bed. It held a lot of gigantic paintings that made the bright colors of the room even brighter.

“Your parents really went all out on the redecorations” Caroline said making Max roll his eyes again

“Line you’ve seen this room more times than I can count” he said as he started pushing Caroline out of the room but she refused to budge.

“I still get surprised each time” Caroline continued despite the force that Max exerted in pushing her towards the exit.

“Whatever, we’re done here. We should go” Max kept saying. He was actually excited of the presents his mother brought but wouldn’t admit to it.

“Yeah. That reminds me… the thing with Chris”. Caroline interrupted when they both finally stepped out of the room making Max blush from both excitement and embarrassment.

“Oh I still haven’t told you how it all happened” He replied closing the door behind him

“Well what are you waiting for” Caroline said ignoring the fact that she had been the one who had refused to leave in the first place. “where is your room again?”

“Caroline Owen do not test me” Max said and let out a small laugh

“It’s not my fault that your house is huge, besides its fun”. Caroline said as she laughed too and Max rolled his eyes for the third time before they both went on the quest of finding Max’s room.

----------------------------

“So how did it happen?” Caroline asked, she sat on the bed in Max’s room. The room was pretty normal and average, although not as exotic as his parents room it also had a large bed and a desk that held Max’s computer and some of his things. He never liked the extremities of his parents to ward those things.

“Well we met outside school at morning dew café” Max said slowly as he sat down opposite Caroline.

“The new one?”

“Yeah, I was stealing glances at him and I didn’t know I was staring until he waved at me” Max covered his face unable to continue but Caroline poked him urging him to go on. “Oh stop that” Max blushed and Caroline gave him a sneaky face

“Then what happened next?” Caroline asked expectantly.

“Well I pretented that I wasn’t looking but it was so awkward and I was so embarrassed” Max said falling on the bed with his face still covered by his palm and Caroline burst into laughter.

“Haha seriously wish I was there” She continued while laughing.

“I’m glad you weren’t though” Max said with a light frown on his face making Caroline pout. “I mean you’d never let it go” He continued and sat up straight again.

“Guilty as charged” Caroline laughed; she like teasing Max about his crushes especially when he made a fool of himself and Max could never get back at her because she never had crushes.

“Anyways I don’t know what pushed me to his table to say hi, and that’s basically all of it.” Max continued  “We talked and he just asked me if I wanted to go on a date with him”

“what did you talk about” Caroline asked curiously wanting to know even the tiniest detail.

“Oh, just some random stuff, nothing serious” Max said, he couldn’t remember all what they had talked about that day and even if he did he wouldn’t even tell Caroline.

“Come on tell me…” Caroline was about poking Max again but was interrupted by a knock on the door and Mrs. Brenda came in.

“Dinner is almost ready” She said with a smile.

“Ok mom we’ll be down in five minutes.” Max called out to his mom who only nodded and left immediately. “Come on Line lets go”

Later downstairs at the dining table, Mrs. Brenda excitedly walked about arranging dishes. She walked to and fro the kitchen randomly handing out plates and dishes. She was so excited that she almost dropped a few on the floor and this brought giggles from both Max and Caroline.

“Haha slow down why are you so excited?” Mrs. Lucia asked taking a plate from Caroline, she carefully dropped it in front of her and hugged Mrs. Brenda from behind making her slow down.

“Mom it wasn’t even up to 3 days” Max said to Mrs. Brenda and she laughed

“it doesn’t matter, it felt more like 3 months” Mrs. Brenda replied Max as she continued serving the dishes regardless of Mrs. Lucia who was still behind her

“She just misses her a lot, don’t worry Mrs. Brenda I’m on your side” Caroline said and Mrs. Brenda smiled expressively.

“Line, you don’t need to be so formal all the time you know, Mom is fine” Mrs. Brenda replied to Caroline.

“I told her the same thing but she won’t listen” Max lashed out almost immediately and glared slightly at Caroline who stuck her tongue at him.

Mrs. Lucia watched the small squabble play in front of her and smiled. She wasn’t always at home as her work required her travelling a lot but she was happy for these moments she had when she was around with her family.

“Guys can we eat now, I’m starving” Mrs. Lucia said laughing cutting off their little argument. “By the way Caroline how are you feeling now?” She asked as she had been informed about Caroline’s attack since Max had not been at home when she arrived.

“I’m better now although I still don’t feel comfortable with seeing a psychologist”

“Well you’ll have to work on that, you can ask us for anything just say it dear”

“Of course” Mrs. Brenda added in

“It’s alright, thanks a lot” Caroline thanked the both of them as politely as she could.

------------------------

Caroline stood looking around her but wasn’t seeing anything.  ‘Did I suddenly go blind?’ She thought to herself as she tried tracing her way through the thick darkness. She remembered leaving the bedside lamp on but now everywhere was totally black that she felt slight chills on her skin. ‘I don’t think so’ She thought further and walking in the darkness as she tried to reach out her arm to find the desk or the light switch but something felt odd, there wasn’t any obstacle in front of her.

‘Where is the bed? I could have sworn the bed was right her in Max room’  she walked faster, as fast as she could and started running but it turned out to be an endless darkness and she started to panic. Just at that moment in the midst of her panic, she heard the sound of waves coupled with the laughter of little children. She turned and followed where the sound came from and as she did, the darkness around her dissipated and became brighter until she arrived at a place that looked like a beach.

“What just happened? Where am I? Am I dreaming?” Caroline frowned trying to make sense of what was happening but she couldn’t understand anything of what she saw but noticed that her feet were sandy. She started walking forward with no idea what she was doing or where she was going so she tried talking to a lady who was walking towards her.

“Hello, excuse me” Caroline tried calling out but she was ignored ‘Odd’ she thought to herself when the lady passed like she didn’t see Caroline or hear her. She tried a few more times with different other people but got the same reaction. Frustrated, she started screaming and no matter how loud she shouted nothing happened, it was like she wasn’t even there. When she was exhausted she finally stopped and just decided to looked around when she saw a boy looking directly at her and not through her.

‘Can he see me?’  she thought  and tried waving at him but he turned away immediately when he was caught. “He heard me! He can see me too!” Caroline gave a huge sigh of relief and started walking towards him

“Hi” Caroline said fondly, she didn’t know this person but since he was the only person around who could actually see her gave her less of a choice but even at that, she felt strangely relaxed.

“Hey” The person replied stiffly and refused to look at her

“Finally … uhm” she felt extremely relieved when the person talked back but she didn’t know how to start a conversation, she was never a fan of it. The person looked strange, more like different. She didn’t fail to notice the long hair that was tied in a ponytail and side bangs that was held back with a few decorative pins.

“You’re not supposed to be here” The stiff voice came out further from the person making Caroline sigh. She didn’t know how she even got here in the first place.

“Well I’m already here and don’t know why” She said sitting on the sand. “I’m Caroline, what’s your name?” Caroline couldn’t think of any better way to start a decent conversation.

“Ellie” Came the short reply.

“oh” Caroline replied and was stunned for a while “I’m sorry, but do you have any specific pronouns?”

“Hmm?” Ellie looked at Caroline with a slightly confused expression

“I mean what do you prefer? ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘they?” She said tring to explain it in the best way she could

“Oh…. She” Ellie looked down again poking the sand with a stick trying to talk as less as possible with Caroline.

“Alright” Caroline replied and slightly chuckled.

 “Why are you laughing?” Ellie looked at her again, her eyebrows were drawn in but she didn’t look angry.

“Oh nothing, I just haven’t met a Trans person before, It kinda nice” Caroline said staring into the crashing waves of the ocean.

“Trans?”

“Uh I’m sorry, I just concluded. Aren’t you Trans?” Caroline looked at Ellie as she apologized.

“…”

“As in transgender. Well simply put it’s when you don’t feel comfortable with the gender you are born in so you switch to what you’re more comfortable with”.

“Hmm, well I guess I am” Ellie finally responded with an accompanied nod

They both talked for a long time as they watched the waves. It was extremely calming for Caroline, coupled with the fact that it was first time she talked this long to someone who wasn’t family or Max. It was very obvious that she wasn’t the only one engrossed in their conversation and it felt really nice. After a while of speaking with each other, two other adults came by and called out to Ellie.

“Pete, what are you doing? We’ve been looking for you” One of them said. Caroline could notice that they both looked through her likes she wasn’t there just like the other people at the beach.

“I’m coming, sorry Caroline I have to go” Ellie said to Caroline, she got up and left with them leaving Caroline alone but she started hearing someone call out to her.

 “Line …. Caroline! …. CAROLINE!” She heard the voice shouting, she tried looking around for the voice but everywhere became dark again. When she opened her eyes, she found herself back in Max room. He was trying to wake her up

“we’re going to be late. Get up already” Max got up and started picking his book from the table “You kept screaming earlier, scared me to death and when I tried waking you and it was hopeless. I tried a couple other times too”

“I had the strangest dream”

“You can tell me later, its already 8:13 get up” Max threw a pillow

“Ok fine I’m getting up” Caroline got up and started preparing for school. “strange”

--------------------------------------------------

A few days later

“What am I going to wear?” Max searched frantically for an outfit

“Wear this, its just a date” Caroline was already tired

“I love you and all but you’re seriously clueless and have no taste”

“Ouch that’s harsh” Caroline said and started laughing

“Ugh stop laughing and help”

“But I don’t have any taste remember?”

“Ok I’m sorry, I’m really stressed”

“You don’t have to stress about it, you rock everything, besides I’m sure Chris would love anything you wear”

“Thanks” Max smiled and blush lightly

“So he calms down when Chris is mentioned”

“Stop it”

Max concluded his search with a cream colored oversized sweater, a light colored pair of jeans, white sneakers and also a jacket.

“See I told you. You look dashing”

“You think?”

“I know” They were both silent for a while as they went down the stairs

“Line?”

“Yeah, don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet”

“No. I just wanted to know if you still have those lucid dreams of Ellie.”

“Well I had them two more times and you already know that but that’s not for today. You don’t want to be late for a first date”

Caroline had more of the dreams where it always seemed like Ellie was waiting for her at the beach. It was always the same pattern but they usually would talk on different topics at random. Somehow she looked forward to the dreams herself so she could learn more about Ellie and why she kept having the dreams.

“But you didn’t tell me what you talked about”

“I’ll tell you later, come on I’ll drive you there” They were already outside the house and caroline went for the driver’s seat of Max car.

“Are you sure this looks good though”

“It does, like I said you look great”

“Fine.” They both got into the car and drove off to Max’s date.