Make an Effort

Chapter 5: Identity

Yellow and brown leaves fluttered around them as a gust of cool wind rushed past them. Some of the leaves became trapped in the lush grass and continued to rustle there in the breeze. Vines of ivy had wrapped themselves along the wood-paneled fence.

It was a tiny patch of overgrown grass tucked between the music rooms and an old brick house next to the school. It was technically still on school grounds so they weren’t breaking any rules about leaving the campus. But She was sure that if they were court they would still get into trouble with the music teachers, that’s just how they were.

“It’s nice here, how have I never found it before?” It was true, she never came down here because she had never taken up an instrument, but how hadn’t she heard other students talk about it? This was the kind of prime real estate that the year 12s fought the younger students over.

“I don’t know, maybe you didn’t look hard enough,” August gave her an impish smile when she scoffed loudly. “I found it in my first week. I come here in my spares to do homework in peace.”

“Good find.”

“I know; I found it.”

“Shut up,” she laughed, giving him a shove, he toppled over into the grass dramatically, letting out a cry as he fell. “And grow up while you’re at it.”

“I’d love to, but I currently look and sound pre-pubescent, so I might as well act like it. p***s, p***s, penis.” He giggled, sitting back up against the fence.

“I’m beginning to think hanging out with you was a bad idea.” She sighed loudly, leaning back into the ivy. The leaves brushed softly against her cheek.

They sat there in silence for a few moments, drinking in the good day, knowing it might be the last for a while. It was halfway through the term and the days were getting shorter. Soon it’ll be cold again. Ethan liked winter because she could wrap up in as many layers as she wanted and had an excuse not to go outside all day. It didn’t snow in winter, they weren’t up high enough, but there were a few towns surrounding them that got snow sometimes. She used to love going on day trips to the snow but now they never went.

“I was thinking about some names, I made a list in English,” August said, pulling out a list from his blazer pocket.

Her heart began to race. She had come up with a few herself but none of them were ‘the one’. She hadn’t thought he would take her up on her request to find the perfect name and she sat up excitedly to listen to them.

“Great, let’s hear them,” she said, excitement rising up inside of her.

“Harper?” He began, looking up at her to gauge her reaction.

“No.” She said after some thought, it sounded like a last name or the name of an author, it was too androgynous for her. She wanted a name that people would see and know right away that it was attached to a girl. Something that screamed femininity.

“Claire?”

“No.”

“Savannah?”

“No.”

“Come on - aren’t you even going to think about them?” August whined, dropping the list into his lap in frustration. “I spent a lot of time thinking of these great names when I could have been taking notes.”

“Don’t lie, you only wrote these down because you’d finished taking down all the notes,” she laughed. August was top of his class in every class, he wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t classwork unless he had finished it all. He only wrote down some names because he had finished all the work and had got bored. Of course, Ethan wasn’t complaining, she didn’t want anyone to spend more time on her than something more important, like classwork.

“You got me, but you don’t like any of these?” He began crossing the names out with a red pen. From where she was sitting she couldn’t quite read them, but she could tell he had written down a lot of names. “Not even any maybes?”

“Honestly, I’m wondering how you got your name if you’re this bad at it.” She said, only half joking.

“Hey! I’m trying to help you here; it’s not like you’re coming up with anything groundbreaking.”

“I know, sorry, I just have no idea what my name could be. I asked my mum the other day what she would have called me if I was a girl.”

“Yeah, and what did she say?”

“She said she was hoping for a boy because her favourite girl’s name is Taylor and she’d already used it on my sister.” She laughed softly, it was weird asking her mum what she would have named her. It had been an awkward conversation, full of eggshells and pauses that were a bit too long.

“No way! She didn’t have any other names at all?”

“I don’t know if she was telling the truth or if she just didn’t want to say what she wanted to call me.”

“I get it, some of my relatives are still iffy about it and I’ve been out and proud for years now.”

“Do you have any other names, it really is helping,” she assured him, giving him wide, pleading eyes.

“Okay, as long as you shortlist some to rethink about later. When I was trying to find a good name, I went to all these baby name websites and made a list of names I liked.”

“Sure, I can do that,” she said, opening up to the back page of her math book, pen at the ready. “Round ‘em off.”

“How about Brooke?”

“No.”

“Willow?”

“No.”

More and more names were being crossed out in red but none of them were for her. They all sounded like they were for other people, her classmates, her teachers, people she would meet on the street. Not her.

“Alice?”

“Nope.”

“Erin?”

“Eww!”

August gave her a look as if to ask, ‘what do you mean eww?’. She only pocked out her tongue at him. He seemed to be getting personally offended by her lackluster reactions to his well thought out list.

“Rose?”

“No.”

“Hazel?”

“No… Wait what was that last one?” She said, her brain letting out a little ‘ding, ding, ding’ as though August had given the correct answer on a game show. That was the one.

“Hey! You just proved you weren’t even listening to them, you were just going to say no to all of them, weren’t you?” He yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at her. He wasn’t angry, he didn’t even seem to be annoyed, he seemed like he was trying to hold back a smile.

“You caught me. What was that last one?”

“It was Hazel. You know you are such a b***h, right?” He sniggered, circling the name on his list until the pen broke through the page.

“You know, I’ve been called that on multiple occasions, but I never knew why,” she shrugged, jokingly, throwing a clump of grass at him playfully. “I like that one, I like Hazel.”

“We could try it out, see if it works for you. I didn’t go by August from the beginning, I tried out a lot of different names to see which one suited me the most.” He explained, picking the bits of green off his uniform, poking his tongue out at her.

“Sure, we can do that, my name is Hazel, how are you?” She introduced herself, holding out a hand for him to shake. After a second, he took it and gave it a little shake.

“Err, why the handshake?” He said, sounding confused.

“That was how you introduced yourself to me, remember? It was weird then as well.”

“Oh, sorry,” he laughed, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “I must have been nervous or shocked by something.”

“I did just tell you that I was trans.”

“Oh yeah, that would have done it,” he said. “You know, you’re different from how you were then, and that was only two weeks ago.”

“Think of it like this; you were the first person I told I was trans at my school, you were the first trans person I’d ever met in real life, and it’s been two more weeks since I… since I tried to…”

“Do that thing?” He offered kindly. He knew it was still hard for her to say.

She hated that, she had tried to kill herself and she couldn’t even say it out loud. She was still too weak to come to terms with what she had done so she instead, talked around it like it had never happened or it wasn’t as bad as it really was.

“Since I tried to kill myself,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Of course, I’ve changed, so many new things have happened in my life since then, I’ve gotten better, I’m still not great, but I’m getting there.”

He was smiling at her and she felt so damn happy. But she couldn’t tell him that, could she? He was just the one who helped her, who gave her a name, who wanted her to live just so they could spend the day together. She couldn’t say that he made her want to live, they had only known each other for three weeks. It would be weird if she told him. So, she didn’t. Not yet.

“That’s great, Hazel. If you need any more help on getting better just let me know, okay?” He said, giving her hand a squeeze.

He suddenly let out a loud burst of laughter as if what he had said was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

“What?” she asked, confused.

“That was the cheesiest thing I have ever said,” August said, sticking his finger in his mouth and making a gagging noise.

“Well I thought it was sweet,” she said before she could stop herself. Instantly she felt like hitting herself in the face with her own maths book. Why the hell did she just say that?

“Thanks, but slap me next time I sound sweet, will you?”

“Only if you deserve it.”

“I am really happy you’re getting better,” August said absentmindedly, picking at the long grass. His face told Hazel that he was being serious, this one time. “I know what it’s like to feel scared, I know what it’s like to feel alone.”

Hazel could only remember seeing glimpses of this side of him, the vulnerable, serious side. Now that she was really seeing it, it scared her, it wasn’t the August she knew, she didn’t know this person.

“Yeah, of course, I get it.” She said, running a hand through her hair, trying not to look at him in the eye. His stare was too intense and it made her feel uncomfortable.

There was a pause as neither of them knew where to take the conversation. The sun shone down through the clouds and she began to feel drowsy, curled against the cool vines. She could hear August pull out a notes book, she listened as he started on some homework. In their little oasis, it was as if the outside world didn’t exist.

“We should go shopping.”

What?” She was groggy from sleepiness although it hadn’t been long, she was so entranced by the sound of his pen scribbling against the paper and the odd bird call that it took her a moment to understand what he had even said.

“We should go shopping, so you can get some new clothes. Some clothes that suit Hazel, not Ethan.”

Hazel thought back to what she had worn to the support group, she had had to wear some of her sister’s clothes, and they didn’t fit that well on her. They were too small for her, too tight. But she didn’t want to go to the group dressed like a boy, she wanted them to know her as a girl and nothing else. That was why she hadn’t told them her name, because she didn’t want them to know who she was before.

“Was it that obvious?” she asked, feeling her face redden.

“To be honest; yes,” he said, smiling over at her, comfortingly, as if to say that he didn’t care. Or at least she wished that’s what he was saying silently with his large brown eyes. “But that might only be because I know you, and they didn’t, they might have thought that’s what you wear every day.”

“Good to know.”

“But that’s not the only reason, when I was transitioning it was the most self-affirming thing to go out and buy clothes that I wanted to wear, people would call me ‘Mr.’ in the stores. It was great. I think it would be good for you,” he corrected.

“Okay, we could do that.” It might even be fun, she thought.

Silence weighed over the dinner table like a rug. Hazel’s back was hunched by the weight of it; heavier than she could bear alone. The TV continued to spout out horrifying news story after horrifying news story. A terrorist group strikes again killing five; a young woman falls asleep at the wheel and dies in the crash.

Hazel felt like it might not be the best time to bring up her new name. Her whole family was there; an increasingly uncommon occurrence considering Taylor often preferred to eat in her room than sit at the same table as her. She had decided not to bring it up that night, she would talk to August the next day about coming out to her parents. After all, picking a new name made it final; they had to get used to the idea that that was the next step.

“Ethan, sweetie, could you pass your plate over,” his mum held her hand out expectantly. She passed her the empty plate.

“I have a new name now,” Hazel’s voice said without her permission.

There was a pause as her parents shared a glance; long and visible as she sat between them. It was an odd look as if they were using telepathy, silently communicating their feelings to one another. Taylor stayed silent, scrolling through her phone, obviously trying to find something. Hazel wondered if she would ever find it.

“So, what is it?” her dad asked, finally looking at her straight on.

“August gave me a list of names, I liked Hazel the most.”

“So… Hazel…?” her mother mused, walking into the kitchen and putting the dishes in the sink.

“Yeah, Hazel. What do you think?”

A small bubble of excitement swelled in her chest. Her dad’s eyes told her that he didn’t care what she wanted to be called as long as she would always respond. Her mum sounded like she was testing it, seeing how it sound in her mind, seeing whether it suited her.

Hazel knew it suited her, but she wanted to know that her parents were okay with it. August had asked his mother what she wanted before making a decision; because, as he had said, they were the ones that were going to use it the most.

“I like it,” called her mum’s voice from the kitchen. “I think it will suit you. Is that the same August you told me about?”

“The one and only.”

“Didn’t you have a fight with him? I thought you weren’t talking to each other?” Her mum said as she reentered the room.

“Yeah, we made up, I saw him in that group I went to, and we made up.”

“You’ve been a lot better since he’s been around,” her dad noted, giving her a supportive smile. “It’s good that you’re finally finding friends.”

“Are we just going to act like nothing happened? Are we just going to sit here and pretend that Ethan didn’t try kill himself for no f*****g reason?” Taylor screamed, slamming her fists down on the table. The sound echoed through the room, they were stunned into silence.

“I didn’t try kill myself for no reason!” Hazel yelled back. How dare she reduce her suicide to some childish need for attention! She had no idea what it was like to feel so empty, she had no right to judge her.

“Taylor, honey, you shouldn’t just-”

“No, you don’t know what it was like! You were dying in my arms. I couldn’t get the blood out from underneath my fingernails for weeks.” Taylor screamed, tears running down her cheeks, smearing her makeup.

“Oh boohoo! You had dirty nails. You have no idea what I’ve been going through,” she snapped back. How selfish could she be? How dare she; she was dying in her arms.

“If you think that’s what I’m trying to say you’re dumber than I thought.” She stormed out of the room, her hair flowing out behind her like a cape. They all jumped as her door was slammed shut.

Silence permeated the room as Hazel’s parents looked at each other. She hadn’t noticed it before, but her father had dark circles under his eyes like her mother. Why was their family falling apart? She was the one that had broken them. She had done this. What the f**k was wrong with her?

“Sweetie, I hope you don’t think we’ll change overnight. We’ve been calling you Ethan for seventeen years, it’s hard to change habits that are that old.” Her mum tried, moving their conversation back a few paces as if the last minute hadn’t happened.

Hazel took a breath, calming herself down and switching her mind back to their previous conversation; her name.

August had told her the exact same thing; it would take time. He had said his mum had cried because she was losing her only daughter. ‘You have to be patient, it’s hard for them.’

“I know, I’ll try.” She smiled up at her mother’s face hoping she wouldn’t see matching dark circles. She did.

“I was planning on going to Melbourne with August this weekend. He said I should get some new clothes that suited me more.”

Her mother frowned, the lines under her eyes ageing her by twenty years. She had done that.

“Sweetheart, I know you want to look like a girl, but… it can be dangerous. There are some terrible people out there who won’t like it that you want to wear what you like. I’m just worried that you might get hurt.” Her mother didn’t look at her as she wiped down the table with a soapy cloth.

Her chest hurt like something was crushing it with a ton of weight. She felt like she might suffocate as the weight on her chest became more and more oppressive. If someone had asked her what it felt like to have her world come crashing down on top of her, she would have described it like that.

Her mum was scared for her safety. It was something completely foreign within her mind. Of course, she knew that she was putting herself in danger, that she might get yelled at or called names. But she had never thought about getting hurt physically, after all, they were in the twenty-first century, they had marriage equality.

And yet women all over the world were being killed because of their identity.

“So, where do you want to start?” August asked sweeping his hand over the map of the shopping center.

They had decided to travel to Melbourne to have the widest range of clothing as possible. The building was three stories high and even had a basement; all of them were full of shops. Clothing, kitchenware, gifts, and furniture; they had it all.

Hazel’s stomach was trying to turn itself inside out in the most painful way possible. She wasn’t used to being surround by crowds of people and she was beginning to hyperventilate. August had said that is would be better to go shopping out of town because no one from school is likely to see them.

She decided on shrugging her response as she didn’t trust herself to not sound hysterical.

Well, I think we should start here,” he said pointing to a shop on the ground floor. “And work our way up from there. There’s no point in going to the basement, it’s only furniture and stuff down there.

Hazel agreed and followed him through the crowds, he moved effortlessly through, like a fish in a current. It came naturally to him like he was used to being in this kind of environment.

When they got to the shop Hazel felt like vomiting. Her stomach was doing backflips and she couldn’t control it. She tried to calm herself using box breathing but it wasn’t working very well.

A too happy employee greeted them before we even walked through the door. Her smile was almost too wide like there was something wrong with her like she could snap at any minute and start stabbing them. She didn’t have a name tag so Hazel had no idea what her name was.

The store was almost completely devoted to women’s clothing, with a small corner of men’s t-shirts and pants. The feature wall was a vibrant shade of hot pink that almost burnt Hazel’s retinas if she looked at it for too long. Pop music was playing loudly through the speakers and Hazel wanted to leave.

“Hello, do you need any help, today?” The employee welcomed them.

“No thanks, we know where the women’s section is,” August said, smiling back.

The employee gave a laugh. Hazel’s blood ran cold, the realization had just hit her like a ton of bricks. She looked like a boy but was going to try girl’s clothes on in a public place. She rubbed her palms on her jeans in an effort to get rid of some of the sweat, but it wasn’t working.

“Let me know if you need any help,” she said before moving off to fold up clothes that had just been dumped back onto the display table.

“August, I can’t do this, we have to leave.” She said frantically, hysteria rising up inside her. She wheeled backwards, trying not to just run for the exit. She couldn’t do it. Not now, not today.

“Hazel? Why? What’s wrong?”

“They’ll know I’m a guy, they’ll kick me out.” The roaring in her ears nearly drowned out her hushed whispers. Her heart beat faster and faster until it felt like it was going to burst out of her chest like a Xenomorph.

“You’re a paying customer I highly doubt they would kick you out.”

“That’s okay for you to say, girls, are allowed to buy boy’s clothes but not the other way around.”

August’s face darkened for a second and she knew she had said the wrong thing.

“But I’m not a girl and you’re not a boy so what’s the matter?” His voice was clipped and cold, punishment for calling him a girl.

“It doesn’t matter what we are or who we want to be, what matters is what we look like. Yeah, you look like a boy, but I also look like a boy, we can’t look at the girl’s clothes.”

“Now you’re just being stupid,” August huffed, beginning to drag her over to the employee, who was folding shirts. “Hey, my friend wants to look at the women’s section, is that okay?”

The girl looked confused, she looked from Hazel to August as if wondering if they were playing a prank on her.

“Of course, you can look at whatever you want.” She still looked like they had asked her if they were allowed to breathe in the store.

“See?” August said, his voice rising shrilly, “Nobody cares what you wear or what’s in your pants. Now let’s go find you a dress.” He began to drag her across the floor to a rack of flowery summer dresses that had been discounted.

He looked her up and down and began to flick through the dresses like the pages of a book. He started pulling out dresses and throwing them at her. He muttered something about how tall she was and how sizing on women’s clothing sucked. Hazel was struggling to hold them all by the end of it. She glanced over her shoulder, there were not many people in the store and the store assistant didn’t seem to be bothered by them.

“Why doesn’t she care?” She asked, pointing to the girl when August looked up.

“We’re in Melbourne. There must be thousands of trans people here, not to mention drag queens or people who cross-dress. I lived here for a while a few years back and I noticed that that kind of thing isn’t weird here. Sure, there are still assholes around but there are assholes everywhere, you just have to ignore them.”

“My mum said that I could get beaten up if I wore a dress.”

August’s face darkened for a moment as they began to walk towards the changing rooms.

“Yes, you could get hurt, what we do is against what society sees as normal and some people don’t like that. We put ourselves in danger, just so we can be ourselves, but I believe that it’s worth it to be your true self. I know that I have it better than you if I get misgendered people will see me as a girl in pants; not a threat. But you could get hurt if you get misgendered. Do you still want to try those on?”

They had stopped outside of a cubical, and August was looking at her with a furrowed brow. He understood the dangers that she faced, and he was asking her if she wanted to continue on her path as Hazel or go back to being Ethan. She stood at a crossroads, although she knew that she could transition at any time, she knew that if she didn’t do it soon she might hate herself forever. She had already waited far too long. The past few weeks with August had been the happiest she had been in a long time and it was because he made her feel like herself. Not a boy in a dress, a girl being herself.

“No, I want to try them on.” I want to be brave like you. She thought. Ethan didn’t care what other people said about him. Yes, he was scared, but he never showed it. She wanted to be like him.

August’s face split into a wide smile.

“I’m proud of you, Hazel.” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed softly, it was comforting.

The first dress that Hazel tried on was too small, fortunately, August had expected this and had left her the next size up and it fit just fine. It was a white dress with thin straps and a floral pattern. It fit her just fine, but for the first time since coming home from the hospital, her arms were bare for everyone in the store to see. It was almost scarier than walking out in a dress. Thick bandages wrapped around her forearms tightly. She was scared of what he might say, of what expression he might make. Her fear deepened when she stepped out of the change rooms and August frowned.

“What?” She asked, she wanted to hide her arms but there was nowhere to hide them. She loved the dress, but it was too revealing, and not in the normal way.

“Do you like it?” He looked her up and down, hand on his chin.

“Yeah, I think I do,” she spun, and the dress floated out around her. Although she knew he had seen her arms, he seemed to know that she didn’t want to talk about it, so he didn’t ask. She felt strange, she was afraid and exhilarated at the same time. She smiled at him, a silent thank you.

“If you like it we might need to do something about your chest. That kind of dress works when you have something to hold it up with. It’s not really working for you at the moment.”

“Gee, August, tell me what you really think.” She pouted, crossing her arms over her too-flat chest.

“I’m trying to help you, I would have loved it if people had told me something didn’t work when I was first finding clothes. Would you prefer to look like a girl or a boy in a dress?”

“Well, what do you suggest?”

“We should go bra shopping as well while you’re here.”

“But I don’t have any boobs”

“I know that, but you could put stuff in them for now, until you get them.” August sounded exasperated. She gave him a look and he stumbled to try and explain himself. “I put a pack in my underwear, so it looks like I have a d**k. Girls used to stuff tissues down their tops all the time in primary school.”

“I suppose it might be a good idea,” She conceded, thinking about being spotted by someone at school. To Hazel, that thought was nightmarishly close to reality. “You think this dress will look good if we do that?”

“Yeah, but you know what,” he left the changing area without finishing, Hazel didn’t follow him, she was too scared that someone might spot her, or point her out, so she waited. A few moments later, he came back with two denim jackets. “This would make it even better.”

He handed her a pale blue jacket; the sleeves were long enough to cover up her whole arm. She knew what he was trying to do.

“Thank you,” the sincerity shone through her voice as she pulled the jacket on.

“I thought we could have matching ones, it took a while to find one that would fit me,” he said, pulling a dark blue one on, it was clearly from the men’s section of the store.

“You’d think it would be easy since that section is so small,” she mused, with a laugh.

“Well, to be honest with you, I had a boy’s look.” He laughed as Hazel pushed him away in mock disgust. “I guess I know now how it happened, I heard you were in the hospital for a few days.” He said, his voice lowering to a whisper. His eyes drifted towards her covered arms.

She couldn’t help but scratch at them, she didn’t know whether she wanted him to know that yet. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. he was looking at her like she could break.

“Yes, but I’m fine now,” it was as if that was her recorded message for anyone who asked. She didn’t feel comfortable standing there as he looked at her like that. “I should try on some other dresses.”

She tried on three more dresses, all of them with the jacket. August took the dresses that didn’t fit back and brought her t-shirts, both long and short and pants. After what felt like hours she settled on the first dress she had tried on, another dress with sleeves, a pair of mini shorts and two shirts; a plain blue one and a grey one with a unicorn on it. Of course, she couldn’t leave the store with the denim jacket.

Although she thought her haul would be expensive it wasn’t that bad. Most of what she ended up buying was on the clearance rack, with the jacket being the most expensive thing.

August brought his jacket too and they wandered through the shopping mall together wearing matching denim jackets.

They passed by a costume shop which was displaying a range of wigs. A thought explored like fireworks in her brain. She dragged August by the cuff of his sleeve over to look at them. August scrunched up his face in distaste as Hazel tried in veil to hind her excitement as it grew with every passing second.

“Do you think I should get a wig, not these ones, a realistic one? You can get them from the internet, that’s where Emily got hers, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea, besides, Emily only has one because she’s starting to lose her real hair, you’re not.”

“Yeah but having a wig would help me look more like a girl.”

August didn’t look too sure; his brow was creased as if he disagreed with her but didn’t want to say anything to put her off.

August glanced over at her, studying her expression intently.

“Hazel, your hair will grow out, if that’s what you’re worried about. You just have to wait.” He said, placing his hand on her shoulder comfortingly.

There it was again, this Idea that she had to wait, to be patient. Why did she have to be patient? No one else had to wait for things they waited. They were always happy with how their bodies natural behaved. Hazel couldn’t grow boobs because she wanted to or stop stubble from growing on her chin. Why was she the unlucky one?

“We were going to get me a bra right?” She said, turning away from the window display which was beginning to look almost like a mirror in a funhouse.

“Oh, yeah,” August said, laughing awkwardly. “The thing is, I don’t know that much about bras, I can act as moral support, but that’s about it.”

“I suppose this could be a learning experience.” She said as they walked towards the closest bra shop.

The woman in the shop was less accommodating than the first girl they had met. She was older and looked at them like she knew they would cause trouble.

“And what do you two gentlemen want?” She asked, looking down at them through her glasses.

“Actually, my friend Hazel needs a new bra, she knows what size, so we won’t be needing your help, thanks,” August said curtly, dragging her past the lady, who had a shocked look on her face. Hazel wasn’t sure if that was because she just misgendered her or she wasn’t used to being talked to like that by a teenage boy.

They ended up having no idea what bra size she would be. Hazel had no idea how bra sizing worked, and August admitted that he had only ever worn sports bras before wearing a binder. They ended up trying a range of styles and sizes, finally deciding on one with a foam lining, so that she could easily fill it with padding. Hazel’s broad shoulders complicated things, she knew even with padding her boobs would be small if ever she grew any but because of her shoulders she had to get a size that usually accommodated women with large boobs.

When they returned to the counter to buy the bra, the lady looked almost smug.

“Took longer than expected, didn’t it boys?” She smirked as she scanned the bra.

“Yeah, that’s because everything was out of place, you should really clean up your store,” August said, frowning at the woman. Hazel didn’t mind all that much, she was used to being called a boy, it had been that way her whole life and it wasn’t going to change any time soon. “And you might want to give your customers a little more respect next time. Come on, Hazel, let’s bounce.”

They walked out together, August gave a final glance in the older woman’s direction as he went.

“I have no idea how you can talk to people like that.” Her bags swung as they walked through the crowded hall, it was well past lunchtime and she was beginning to realize how hungry she really was. More people had come into the mall since they had started shopping, but she no longer felt afraid.

She felt happy, something she hadn’t felt in a long time, it was almost foreign.

“She was treating you like s**t. I know what that’s like, and I won’t let it happen to you.”

“Well it did, and it will, I still live my life as Ethan, and that’s okay, I’ve just got to ease into it. I can ignore them.”

“I don’t know how you do that. It gets to me every time,” August growled, tugging at a tuft of hair which had fallen into his eyes.

“And she knew that, that’s why she said those things.” She paused, thinking about all the terrible things that had happened to people like her. “That’s what her kind does.”