I was dreaming. In my dream, I was standing in front of a mirror. I was staring at my reflection, smiling at the girl on the other side. She was pretty and cute. She was dressed in a flowy pink dress that had a white collar at the top and a white hem at the bottom. The girl in the mirror twirled and giggled.

Suddenly, I heard the door to my room fly open. I whirled around, and there I saw... her. "M-mother!" I shouted.

"What in the world...?" My mother asked as she stared at me.

"P-please knock before you come in next time," I attempted to protest.

"Maybe I should knock less often if this is what's going on up here." My mother stepped up to me. "Where did you get this?"

"I-it's not mine, it belongs to a friend."

"A 'friend'? Aren't all of your 'friends' online?" Mother grabbed me by the arm. "What have I told you about this, Alex?"

"Th-that God hates it..." I looked away as I said those words.

"That's right, so why do you keep insisting on doing this?"

Tears began to form in my eyes. "Because this is who I am. No amount of praying or believing is going to change that." I turned back to my mother. "A-and you keep saying that 'God hates it', but God has told me that he doesn't!"

My face suddenly became very red and very sore as I spun around and fell over. I looked up, seeing my mother's face full of anger. "I've told you many times, you're not listening to God. If you were, you wouldn't be hearing him say things like that." I saw my mother flex her hand, balling it up into a fist before slowing letting it spread back out. "I want this gone within the hour. I want you to stop all of this madness. I don't want to have to keep telling you this, Alexander. You will stop, or you will get more than just a slap next time."

----------

My eyes shot open and I sat up quickly. "Mother..." I closed my eyes, trying hard not to cry. "I tried, Mother... I tried so hard... I wanted so badly to please you, but I just couldn't..."

Dusty let out a soft meow as he brushed against me.

I glanced up, checking the clock. It was early, too early, but I didn't want to go back to sleep. I didn't want to return to those dreams, especially not... well, that didn't matter right now. I moved to the side of my bed and tossed off my pajamas, which that night had been a button-up shirt and pajama pants. Both were pink with cute hearts all over them.

I dressed in a pink sleeveless dress that had a small yellow jacket piece that went over it. I spent several minutes putting on makeup and adjusting certain fake parts so that they sat on my body correctly. Once I was done, I tied my hair up and walked out into the living room.

I sighed and shook my head at the sight in front of me. Auntie had fallen asleep at the computer again. I walked over and gently nudged her to wake her up. "Auntie. Auntie, you fell asleep at the computer again."

"I'll have it ready by tomorrow, Amanda..." Auntie spoke in her sleep.

I carefully situated myself so that I could put her arm around my shoulders, then gently helped her to her feet. She was still almost entirely asleep, but with a little work, I could get her to walk to her room and lie on her bed. She wouldn't exactly be comfortable, since I didn't have the strength to actually get her into bed properly, but at least she'd be lying down in bed. Besides, I didn't exactly feel like trying to properly put a naked woman in her bed. I may not have cared about seeing her body, but I still didn't want to accidentally touch her private bits. Once I had gotten her into bed, I left her room and shut the door.

"Well, she's in bed properly, at least," I spoke to Dusty. He had a habit of following me everywhere. Auntie and I liked to joke that he was my shadow. If he was apart from me, it was because I wasn't in the house, or because he was fast asleep. The latter often didn't last long, either. I swear he had some kind of sensor that woke him up if I wasn't in the same room as him for more than a minute.

I sat down at the computer and looked over what Auntie had been working on. It seemed as if she had been putting together a 3D model. Pink hair, strapless dress that was much too short and definitely sat far too low on the girl's chest, a magic wand, it had all of the makings of a magical girl. "Looks like they're remaking Yume's model." I looked it over a bit more. "Its got a much higher poly count than the last one. I wonder if that means they were able to optimize the engine more."

I saved the model, ensuring that I marked it as a new file just in case. I then closed the program down and loaded up the latest build of the game. It seemed that Auntie had just been sent a new build yesterday, so I was curious what was different from the last one. Auntie and her team never had an issue with me playing the builds. Sometimes, they even enjoyed the feedback I had to offer.

----------

I groaned as I leaned back in the chair. I wasn't sure if I was just bad at the game, if the difficulty was too much, or if the boss I was fighting was just unfinished. All I knew was that I had spent the last half hour trying to beat it.

Dusty, meanwhile, had hopped up onto my lap and fallen asleep.

"Awake already?" I heard Auntie ask.

"Yeah, I couldn't sleep," I responded as I turned around. I coughed lightly as I saw Auntie had a towel around her neck and nothing else. I could see her body and hair were both still wet, so I could only assume she had just gotten out of the shower.

Auntie seemed to realize why I coughed, and her face went red. She pulled the towel down and around her body, though it was barely long enough to cover her completely. She cleared her throat, then spoke up. "You're not going to miss school today, are you?"

I shook my head. "No, don't worry, I'll still go to school. I'll probably just be..." I yawned, "...a little tired. Might try to get a nap before class or something."

Auntie sighed and frowned. "Well, alright..."

I could sense that she wanted to speak up and scold me for being awake at such an ungodly hour of the morning, but she also was worried about upsetting me.

"Have you had breakfast?" Auntie asked after a long pause.

I shook my head. "I don't know how to cook, and we haven't bought any kind of cereal or anything, either."

Auntie rubbed the back of her neck. "Ahh, yeah... I keep meaning to... But then I see how many kinds there are and..." She paused. "What kind do you like?"

I shrugged. "Dad only ever bought that nasty puffed wheat cereal. 'You either eat this or nothing at all, we don't have the money to be picky about cereal.'" I grumbled.

"That sounds like my brother, alright. Goes out to college for six years and gets himself a degree, and what does he decide will be his career? To work as a manager in fast food." Auntie sighed. "I suppose he was the store manager, so he at least was at the top, but still... You think he'd want more with three kids and a wife that refuses to get a job..."

"Yeah..." I turned away.

Auntie seemed to notice I was uncomfortable as she stepped up to me and put an arm around me. "Hey, don't worry, they're not here anymore. They're not getting out of prison for years, and by then, they'll have absolutely no say in anything you do. Plus, you've got me, and I'll support you even if you decide to get a deadbeat job." Auntie smiled and winked.

I couldn't help but giggle at that. "Thanks, Auntie." I stood up and wrapped my arms around Auntie. She returned the embrace, pulling me close to her.

"They can't hurt you anymore, okay?"

"Okay."

----------

I was exhausted. Being autistic already gave me insomnia-like sleeping habits, but never as bad as this. I wanted to die, or at least find some place to curl up and sleep for four hours. I audibly yawned as I pushed open the door to the school.

"Perkins!" Juri shouted the moment she saw me.

I jumped back and tripped over my own two feet. I fell onto my butt, and the contents of my backpack spilled out. Had I not zipped it up before I left for school?

"Sorry!" Juri rushed to me and began to gather up my things.

"Please, don't do that... I'm hypersensitive to sound." I slid my backpack off, then started to help gather up my stuff.

"Ah, right, that's usually a thing autistic people deal with, isn't it?" Juri haphazardly tossed the things she had collected into my backpack. "Sorry, I was just really excited to see you."

I rose an eyebrow as I put what I had collected into my backpack. I then proceeded to organize Juri's mess. "And why would that be?"

"Well... I found something after I went home yesterday. Something I had thought I had lost. Can you guess what it is?" Juri got close and gave me a big grin.

I paused organizing my backpack long enough to look Juri over. She was dressed in a red sleeveless shirt and a black skirt today. She also had a purse slung over her chest. I turned back to my backpack to continue organizing it. "I don't know anything about you or what you've lost in the past, but you didn't have that purse yesterday. Is that what you found?"

Juri stared at me, I wasn't sure if she was in awe, confused, or dumb-struck. Either way, I suspected my answer was not what she had expected to receive. "No, it's not. I had this purse yesterday, too, I just kept it at my desk."

"Then I have no idea." I zipped up my backpack now that it was organized again. I stood to my feet and slung it over my back.

Juri opened her purse and retrieved a red book from it. My face fell as soon as I saw the "Harlingen Academy" logo on it. "I found my old yearbook!"

I took a step back, my eyes darting around. "Th-that's n-nice... I'm happy for you..."

"After school yesterday, I got to thinking. Your name sounded really familiar." Juri looked down at the yearbook.

And with that, I was gone. Before she could utter another word, I had turned tail and booked it as quickly as I could. I didn't know where I was going, I didn't care where I was going. All that mattered was that I was going away from Juri. Maybe, if I ran fast enough, I could-

For the second time in the day, I found myself falling flat onto my butt. I must have hit someone without even realizing it. "I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking where I was-"

I don't think I could truly describe the feeling I had in that moment. I was staring at an impossibly beautiful girl. She had long, fluffy, blonde hair, and was dressed in a short-sleeved, sky-blue dress. A semi-transparent white skirt then went over the dress. As she lifted herself up with her hands, I saw her left eye was a soft shade of amber, though her hair covered her other eye. I saw her blink a bit before glancing around the floor.

My eyes followed her gaze to the floor, and a moment later, I noticed a pair of red glasses sitting on the ground. I quickly grabbed them and held them out to the girl. "Are these your glasses?"

The girl smiled and nodded. "Thank you." She took the glasses, brushed her hair out of her face, and put them on. It was only then that I noticed a particular oddity about this girl. Her right eye wasn't looking straight! Instead, it was pointed up and to the right, as if looking towards the ceiling.

I would likely have said something more to the girl, but I heard Juri calling out my name. She didn't seem to know where I had gone, though, so I quickly hid nearby, hoping she would just pass on by.

Unfortunately, Trevor noticed me round the corner. "Alexis, hey!" he called out.

I jumped and whirled around. "T-Trevor... uhh... h-hey...!"

"Is something wrong?" Trevor asked as he stepped up to me.

"S-something wrong? N-no, nothing's wrong... Not at all..." I chuckled nervously. "I-it's just that..."

"There you are!" Juri shouted. She ran up to me and put her hands on her hips. "Why did you run off like that?"

"I... uhh... wanted to get to class!" I tried to lie.

"Classes don't start for an hour." Juri stared at me. "You ran off right after I went to show you this." She reached into her purse and once more pulled out the yearbook.

"A yearbook?" Trevor questioned, snatching the book from Juri's hands. "'Harlingen Academy'? Isn't that the school you went to years ago?"

"It is! That's what I wanted to show Perkins."

"Why? Is Alexis in here or something?"

"Yes! I mean, no! I mean..." Juri shook her head. "Alexander Perkins is in there! I wanted to see if she recognized him!"

Trevor rose an eyebrow. He held the yearbook up above his head, causing Juri to try to jump for it. The sheer difference in height between them meant that Trevor barely had to even hold the book up to keep it out of Juri's reach. "Why? What's it matter if Alexis knows Alexander? I get that they have the same last name, but that doesn't mean their related, and even if they are-"

"I think Alexis is Alexander!" Juri shouted loudly.

To say that Trevor looked confused would be an understatement. "That's... what? How does that even make sense?" Trevor pointed at me. "She's clearly a girl, not the boy you had a crush on as a kid!"

To say that my anxiety was flaring up would also be an understatement. I couldn't run, Juri and Trevor were shouting, and Juri had not only figured out my secret but also spilled it to Trevor without a thought! I grabbed my head. "That's enough!" I shouted. I hadn't noticed it then, but my voice had defaulted to my birth voice.

Trevor and Juri turned to me in surprise.

"A-Alex...?" Juri questioned.