“Evie... you’ve been eating literally all day,” Lily said.

“...So?” Evie mumbled, taking another bite, this one of chocolate fudge ice cream. “It’s not like I’m gonna get fat or anything,” she said, waving her spoon around. “It’s VR after all.”

Lily sighed and sat down next to her. “Are you okay?”

To be honest, Evie had known for hours that this was going to happen. That they’d come back and ask her what was bothering her. That they’d pretend like everything wasn’t about to go horribly, horribly wrong.

That everything they had wouldn’t soon be lost.

“I’m good,” Evie lied. “Just... w-wanted to eat all day.”

May plopped down on the other side of her, stealing her spoonful of ice cream. After she licked it clean, she gave the small girl a smirk. “You are a terrible liar, little Evie.”

“I don’t... understand,” Evie finally said, shoving the ice cream away from herself and crossing her arms, the discarded container exploding into shimmering particles. 

“What don’t you understand?” Lily asked.

“Why you two... play with my emotions. I... I...” she started, struggling to say the words for fear of what they meant. “I love you. I love both of you, I love being with you and playing with you and flirting with you and hugging you and being held by you and... and I loved you even before this summer, I loved watching you work and I loved talking with you and... back before I understood, I was so jealous that this wasn’t something I could be a part of...”

Evie paused for a moment, only to catch her breath and wipe her eyes. “But now... I can be, because you’re poly! You told me you’re poly, and that it was okay, but...”

Then she choked. “No, it’s not okay. You’re poly lesbians. You’re lesbians and... I’m only a girl in VR. The moment we leave, I’m not going to be a girl anymore, and it won’t matter anymore that I love you. The things we’ve done in here won’t matter. The things we’ve been won’t matter. Everything will go back to the awful way it used to be. I’m going to be a stupid horrible boy again and there’s nothing I can do about it!”

“Evie...” Lily started.

“I wish I was a girl... but... for real,” Evie sobbed. “I didn’t like being a boy before but now that I know what I’m missing it hurts so much worse. I hate it. Why couldn’t I have been born a girl like you two?”

May snorted, coughing out the food she’d been eating. 

Once more, it felt as if a thorn stabbed straight through Evie’s heart. She winced, and she winced hard, before May put her hand on Evie’s shoulder.

“No, nononono,” May laughed, shaking her head. “We were not—” she cut herself off, before looking at Lily. “Can I out you?”

Lily nodded.

May continued, “Evie, we were not born girls. We’re trans girls. AMAB.”

Evie’s face scrunched up. “What? I don’t know what that means. Trans... is that like... umm...” she shifted uncomfortably. “But you just look like normal girls, not...”

May raised an eyebrow. “Evie... it’s 2029 how do you not know what trans people are.”

Evie’s face reddened behind the tears. “I don’t know... I guess my parents? I know I don’t know much of anything. I grew up under a rock,” she looked at her hands. “Up until I met you two I was still convinced by my parents that lesbians were evil.”

“Oh, you poor girl,” Lily said, pulling her into a tight hug.

Evie breathed out, feeling a bit safer and less tense at the hug.

Lily stroked her hair for a moment, giving her a second to calm down. Then she asked, “Evie, if you could take medicine that would... turn you into a girl, would you?”

Evie giggled. “That would be crazy. Yeah, of course, then everything would be so much better.”

“Evie... that medicine is real. It’s the medicine that May and I take. Without it we would look like boys.”

Evie looked back and forth between them, wiping her eyes. “This isn’t funny.”

May sighed, her silliness completely gone for once. “It’s not funny. It’s true.”

The small girl took a deep breath. Then another. It was very clear the two girls were serious about this, which meant that... it meant that if she could take the medicine, she’d be just like them. She... she could be a girl too. For... real.

“So when I get out of VR I can take medicine and then I’ll look like... this?” She gestured to her VR body.

Lily shook her head. “You’ll more likely look like your sister.”

“...I’m okay with that, I think,” she whispered. “So... how long does it take before I become a girl?”

“You’re already a girl, Evie,” May said, patting her on the back.

“I mean in real life,” Evie rolled her eyes.

“I meant real life too!” May said, then poked her in the shoulder. “You are not your body. Your gender identity can be completely different from what your body looks like. That’s what it means to be trans, cutie. If you weren’t a girl, you probably wouldn’t be comfortable being in that body.”

Evie breathed out, May’s words having dealt a major blow. “I’ve... I’ve been a girl the entire time, then? My entire life I thought I was uncomfortable because... I don’t know... I just was... and it was because I was a girl in a boy’s body?”

May slurped out of a juice box. “Yup.”

“Well... heck.”

Lily ruffled her hair. “It’s okay, Evie, with parents like yours this kind of thing was always going to be really difficult to figure out.”

“Wait... Did you two know I was a girl?” 

“Yup,” May said again, between slurps.

“Well, we didn’t know,” Lily said. “But there were a lot of... factors that made it seem likely. You deciding to play as a girl and coming out of your shell was where it was starting to feel obvious.”

“Why... why didn’t you tell me?” Evie whined.

Lily frowned. “Well... usually you’re not supposed to do that, because that can cause someone to retreat even further away from figuring things out.”

“I didn’t even know there was anything to figure out!” Evie said, tears prickling at her eyes again. “Ugggh. I’m sorry, it’s not your fault... It’s my parents’,” she choked. “I knew they were bad but... I can’t believe they kept me from so much. That it kept me from figuring out I was a girl.” 

Lily rubbed Evie’s back. “I should’ve realised you wouldn’t know what it meant to be trans. I knew you were sheltered as a child by garbage parents but I didn’t realise it was bad enough that you’d never even heard the term...”

Evie shook her head, staring down at her hands again. “I only ever heard my dad rant about... the boys that wear girls’ clothes... he called them tran—” she trailed off, not really wanting to say it.

“Yeah, you can forget about that, that’s a slur.” May slurped at her juice box. “Really, though, even without the slur... with parents that think being a lesbian is evil, they probably wouldn’t have too favourable an opinion on trans people either. Sounds like the type to say it’s ‘not the natural order’ or some nonsense.”

Evie’s breath caught.

“Are you going to be okay, Evie?” Lily asked.

“Y-yeah,” she murmured. “I’ll be okay. I... I wasn’t really interested in a relationship with them anyways. If they hate you two then I hate them. It’s not... not worth the risk to tell them anything.”

“On the upside of never talking to them again, it means you can start HRT immediately!” May pointed out.

“Hormone replacement therapy,” Lily defined for Evie. “The medicine that changes your body into a girl’s.”

“You never did tell me how long that would take...” Evie said. “How long will I have to take it before I’ll be... comfortable?”

“Oh, a few months for the major effects to kick in. We actually have a few months of spare hormones if you want to get started immediately.”

“A few months?” Evie moaned. “I should’ve started before we got into VR for the summer... I’m going to have to deal with that stupid old body for so long...”

Lily stroked Evie’s hair again. “It’ll be okay, Evie.”

“I’m not going to be comfortable being touched out there...” Evie realised. “I’m scared,” she finally mumbled. “I don’t want to log out. I’m even more scared than I was earlier... when I thought I was going to... lose more. I just... I don’t want to be in that old body anymore...”

“Shhh... it’ll be okay. It’s just a matter of time, Evie...” Lily tried. “We’ll get you on HRT today, first thing after we log out.”

“People are going to see me in that stupid old boy body!” Evie moaned. “A bunch of dudes in the stupid business classes I’m stuck in!”

May put a sweet bun in Evie’s mouth, stopping her from moaning anymore. “Cutie, you’ll be fine. We have this VR setup we can go back inside at any point. Trust me! It’ll be over before you know it.”