chapter one

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chapter one

"Ellie! Time to get up! Today's a school day!" I hear my mum yell from downstairs.

Oh yeah. How could I forget? Yesterday was Sunday. The last day of the weekend. I, of course, don't want to go to school. But I don't know, today kind of feels like it's going to be a good day for some reason. Honestly, though? I kind of doubt it. No day ever really is a good one for me.

After a few more minutes of laying in my bed and staring up at the ceiling, I hear my mum yell again. "Danielle! Hurry up!" I flinched a little bit at the sound of my birth name, as always.

Nodding to myself slightly, I sat up, then slowly made my way to standing up. I opened my closet, grabbing the first plain black t-shirt and pair of jeans I could find. I walked into the bathroom, stripped out of my pyjamas, and looked into the mirror. I took a minute to just take in everything.

I'm not really a boy. It's obvious. I have girl parts. But, I need to at least look like a boy. That's also obvious- to me, at least.

Opening up the cabinets and quickly looking through them, I found exactly what I was looking for. The ace bandages. As I begin to slowly wrap them around my chest, I can already tell there's a difference. A very noticeable difference. When finished, I turn to the side, looking in the mirror and admiring my good work. Slipping the shirt on, I smile to myself. You can barely tell I'm a girl by my looks, except for my hair, which is currently going a little bit past my shoulders. It's kind of annoying not being able to have it look like 'boy' hair but I suppose I have to deal with it.

"Danielle Howell! Get down here right this instant!" I hear my mum yell from downstairs, sounding angry.

Slipping my pants on and quickly brushing my hair since I didn't have time to straighten it, I run out of the bathroom and slide down the railing on the staircase. "Sorry, mum. I was..." I paused, trying to think of an excuse. "I was looking for my straightener. Have you seen it?"

With that, I got a small shake of the head. "Nope. Haven't seen it. I'm not the one who uses it, Dani. You're the only one in the house who uses that thing."

"Hm. I wonder where it went. Hey, what time is it?" I ask, looking around and grabbing my bookbag off of the couch.

"It's 7:45. We have to leave soon," she replied quietly, watching me closely. I assume she noticed that my chest looked flatter than usual, but just isn't saying anything about it.

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"Alright, Danielle. Have a nice day at school, honey!" my mum said enthusiastically before I exited the car, rolling my eyes a little bit and looking down, making my way into the school.

I'm quickly greeted by my best friend, PJ, who is also known as the only person who knows that I am transgender and accepts me for it. "Hey, Dan!" he says happily, walking up to me and greeting me with a hug as he does every school day.

"Hey, PJ. Was your weekend great? Because mine was very unproductive. Please, explain your tale of your productive weekend," I said, laughing softly.

"Well, mine was pretty damn unproductive too. I sat around and played video games, pretty much. But yo, we should probably head to class if you don't want to be late."

"Fine. Okay."

We began walking to class, and I sat down in my seat towards the back of the class, leaving PJ to sit at his which was towards the front.

Then somebody walked in.

He had semi-longer hair, but it was still obvious that it was a boy cut. He was super skinny, kind of tall, and even more pale than me, which is pretty hard to do. He looked mildly awkward, but still generally happy to be here. I could tell by the way his eyes practically glowed with excitement.

Speaking of his eyes, I felt like I could get lost in them. I only made eye contact with him for a second or so, but I could tell that his eyes were blue. They remind me of the ocean.

Whilst staring towards the front, not realising that the boy who stood there a moment ago had walked up to the professor. I looked over towards the professor's desk, watching as he motioned towards the general area I was in.

The boy started to walk over to me, and sat down in the desk next to me.

He seemed even more perfect up close.

As he realised I was looking at him, he nodded towards me, introducing himself with a simple, "Hey! I'm Phil!" and then clearing his throat and saying, "Uh, I'm new here," and looking down for a moment and letting out a soft laugh.

"Uh, I'm Dan," I replied awkwardly, also kind of looking down awkwardly as well.

"So, uh, sorry for bothering you about this, but since I'm new here it'd be nice to have someone to hang around with. Just so I'm not all lonely and everything, you know? But you seem like a nice guy, and..." he trailed off.

"So you're basically asking me to be your tour guide around the school because you have literally no idea where you're going. Right?" I ask, laughing.

"No! Not exactly. I just don't want to be lonely. Especially in my first few days at the school," he defended, a small smile on his face the whole while he was talking.

"Yeah. I see what you're getting at."

"So what classes do you-" he was cut off by the beginning of class.

I looked towards the front of the class again, looking at PJ as he also glanced back at me, holding back a laugh because he saw that I was blushing from talking to Phil. I responded with a subtle flash of my middle finger towards him and then glancing over at Phil to make sure he didn't see. Thankfully, he was too caught up in jotting down notes.

Then I tuned out. I ended up staring into space, only listening to my own thoughts.

Which, surprisingly, were pretty happy thoughts.

Today has already been a pretty good day.

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Author's Note: hey, guys! sorry that this chapter was slightly overdue. i was caught up in schoolwork. but it's up, and that's all that matters. i'm going to shoot for updating this every other day, but if that doesn't play out correctly, i'm going to try to shoot for an update every week. but anyway, thanks for reading! i hope you enjoyed! ^.^
i love you all, my smol babbs. peace out, stay rad!
-ary asylum xx

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