8.1 Riya's Result

The summer routine continued for a while.

Not every day. Aarav still wore his own shorts and T-shirts most of the time. But every few afternoons, he brought the clips to Riya, asked for the soft T-shirt, or chose one of the kurtis. Sometimes he went downstairs dressed that way; sometimes he stayed inside.

Then Riya's Class 10 result arrived.

5.1 Known By His Name

By the second month, Aarav knew the girls' building well enough to move through it without looking for Riya first.

He knew the crowded staircase after Marathi period, the library timings, and the corner near the office where students waited after forgetting an ID card. He could go for water alone and sit with Anaya and Kavya even when Riya had an extra Class 10 lesson upstairs.

Still, new girls sometimes called him "Riya's brother" before remembering his name. A substitute teacher once asked whether he was visiting.

Mother did not go to school in anger.

That frightened Aarav more than shouting would have done.

She ironed her cotton kurta in the morning, packed his tiffin, and checked his diary twice. Riya stood near the kitchen door, holding her own school bag.

"Aai, should I come?" she asked.

Mother shook her head. "You go to your building. I will handle this."

Aarav looked at the floor.

"I told you not to make it big," he said.

Mother closed his tiffin box and kept it in his bag. "If a child is scared to enter class, it is already big."

Reader note: This story contains scenes of teasing, bullying, and humiliation in the early chapters. These scenes are included only as story conflict. They are not shown as acceptable, funny, or something to copy. Bullying, forced humiliation, harassment, and pressure around clothing or identity can seriously hurt a person. The story supports safety, consent, dignity, family support, and respectful treatment.

In Green Park Society, Aarav was the only boy in his age group.

For a while, Archie thought about Amy.

Deliberate thoughts had become difficult now. They needed somewhere steady to stand, and stumbled around in his mind as the ground crumbled away beneath them. Each thought came without asking, soft and immediate, gliding softly around the gaps. Instinctive thoughts settled much more easily, as they could simply float through the spaces as they pleased.

He remembered the first time she had rescued him.

CHAPTER 64
We sat for a while enjoying the views, comfortable as a family, until Clara spoke up again.

“I got given a pressie before I came over, one for you all”

Maz gestured ‘go on’, and Clara chuckled.

CHAPTER 30
Our departure was a wrench, but we still had a lot more to see. It felt as if we had found the ideal holiday spot only to abandon it. As our train pulled out, clearly sharing my thoughts, Ange simply whispered, “We can always come back”

Society is a huge live role playing game where we have to learn the rules as we play, right?

I had a weird dream. I was Victoria, and we were back at the weddings of the previous week, but it was Victoria who got married to Nancy, to Mona, and to Aries in consecutive ceremonies. Of course, my parents weren’t there, like in all my dreams, but we went to what should have been their apartment afterward. Aries wanted to consummate our marriages, and her ovipositor was fully out, though I had no idea when she had had time to have sex with a man during the day. Then it turned out that Nancy and Mona were Pasthru emales, and I was worried that the group was going to impregnate me somehow. We got as far as the four of us nesting our organs when all of that evaporated and Victoria was there alone, and then I woke up.

Mark Lansing never wanted to stand out. He was perfectly happy disappearing into a football huddle with the rest of the team until one play made him the talk of the town. Thrust into a spotlight he never wanted, every choice can reshape his future, and every decision could transform him in ways he never believed possible. Mark’s destiny will be determined on the field … assuming he can figure out how to dress the part.

How can something be so wrong, when it feels so right?

That was the single most important thought that ran through Aisha’s mind as she fastened her padded bra behind her, before she took the pair of silky dark tights out of their packet and slowly stretched them one leg at a time over her hairless legs, until the control top held her abdomen and her backside tightly. As she took her plain white blouse and knee-length blue pencil skirt from its hanger, Aisha mused on how the clothes were a far cry from the hijabs and abaya her mother and sisters wore.

CHAPTER 63
The poor lad was twitching with nerves, so Maz just stepped closer to hug him, mother to the core, and I had a sudden burst of the hatred I would never lose for the bastards who had kept them apart for so long.

We waited, and waited some more, but I finally spotted a duty-free bag reading ‘Singapore’ and knew we were finally in the home straight. Each time the automatic doors opened, the lad twitched, and then she was there, and it was LC who saw her first and beat her brother to the hug. Ish was close behind, and there was a moment that touched me as, rather than usurp his sister’s position, he simply included her in the hug.

*A Life in Plain Sight* begins with Steve, a thirty-five-year-old man whose small, fine-boned body and naturally androgynous presentation mean strangers routinely perceive him as a beautiful woman—a fact Steve has lived with for years without allowing it to complicate his certainty about who he is. Intelligent, literal, funny, intensely curious, and comfortably isolated, Steve has built a perfectly functional life around work, family, hobbies, and the conviction that *not unhappy* is good enough.

Magnolia Blooms & Sakura Petals
By
Rebecca Anna Coleman

-6-
The Greenville Bazaar

The Greenville Bazaar was a massive charity shop that was located at the very start of main street. According to local tradition, main street started at the base of the massive concrete levee and ended on concrete steps of the courthouse. Anyway, as soon as I entered the building I felt a sense of wonder come over me. I felt a sudden sense of joy come over me.

I had the trailer to myself until about three-thirty.

Another Country -23-
Erin Halfelven

Tommy walked home from the bus stop, his long blond hair swaying against the small of his back. He was five foot four, a height he had reached recently and likely the end of the line, considering his father had stopped at the exact same mark. With his soft features and the way his hair caught the light, he looked like a mirrored image of his mother, only thirteen years younger. When they went out together, strangers often complimented his mother on her "pretty daughter." After a few years of it, Julia and Tommy had simply stopped correcting them.

CHAPTER 29
Breakfast was as almost as limited as it had been in the first two places, but here there was a much better selection of jams, plus far more tasty cold meats and cheeses. Nicer still was that instead of a cheap plate with a single piece of bread and a croissant, there was a whole array of bread to be eaten at will.

I waved at the choice before us, and grinned at Ange.

“You can pick our hotels for the rest of this trip, love”

There; that word dropped into conversation just as she had served it to me. Your call, Ms Meads.

CHAPTER 28
We moved up the coast bit by bit, starting at the spot where the mountains ended. It was surreal: the Pyrenees simply came to an abrupt halt not just at the sea, but also at the edge of a vast plain, like a crease in a bedsheet. More importantly, though, we had sand rather than gravel.

We stopped in at the tourist office, where they had a list of hotels that Ange checked against her book, until she went “Ooh! That one there. Not the most expensive, but it’s got a bloody Michelin star!”

CHAPTER 12
Work had left me frazzled, as that time of year always does. There are various interpretations of legal responsibility by both accountants and clients, and by that I mean more or less blatant breaches of the rules, as I have said. As a firm, we don’t do that, or at least I haven’t seen it. I see so many entries on websites like Companies House where accounts haven’t been filed at all, or regularly late, and I can’t do that anymore than I could shoplift. Annual accounts are, in essence, an account of a year’s business plus a snapshot of where that business is at the start of April. Some clients try their hardest to either squeeze things in or hold them back, for financial advantage, but we refuse to play that game. When those windows and doors shut, they are shut.