Sunlight filtered in through the window. I yawned and sat up to find that I had slept in until ten. After rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, the realization hit me like a kick in the nuts I no longer had: I was ridiculously late for school.

I scrambled out of bed and promptly fell to the floor, which helped absolutely nothing. Luckily, I had a pair of pants on the floor from… Honestly, I had no idea when. I didn't remember leaving my pants on the floor the day before, so for all I knew, they were still my old boy pants. They still fit, anyway. I then grabbed my cloak, which did its thing and changed into a damn near knee length, light blue dress (with appropriate teddy bear design just under my breasts, naturally). I blinked at my ridiculous looking reflection, and then watched as the jeans I'd had on became blue tights. It made me realize just how fantastic my legs looked, but I put the thought out of my head quick. School!

I slipped on a pair of shoes, grabbed my bag (scythe), and ran out of house, pausing only a brief moment to say bye to my mom. I dunno why she didn’t wake me up, but maybe she thought I’d left on time and didn’t know I was still at home until I rushed out the door. I wonder if she was surprised I was wearing a dress… Hell, I was surprised I was wearing a dress, but the cloak decided what it wanted to be. I was more weirded out it could change more than just itself.

I was out of breath by the time I finally got to school. I dropped onto my ass by the door and took a minute to calm my racing pulse. I hadn’t run to school like that for years, back when I was in middle school and missed the bus.

“Jeez, what the hell is up with you, new girl?” Brandy’s voice asked. I groaned inwardly. Of all the people to meet when I get to school late, it had to be her, didn’t it?

“I'm late, that's what.”

“Obviously. Your boy toy was worried about you, but the limey kid told him you overslept.”

I stood up and smoothed my dress out. “Woulda been nice if he'd woken me.” I glared at her. “Kevin's not my ‘boy toy’, he's my dead cousin's friend, and that makes him mine, too.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Yeah, your cousin. You two have the same name, which is weird.”

“Uh, Danielle isn't the same as Daniel.”

She rolled her eyes. “It basically is. Just a couple letters and feminine emphasis. And you showed up right after he died. It's freaky, and I wanna know why.”

I sighed. “Whatever. I'm just gonna get to my class late and get reamed out for it. Just keep your shit to yourself.”

She turned up her nose and walked away, but I distinctly heard her say “Whatever, slut.” If only I could beat her upside the head with my scythe… Regardless, I just let out a sigh and carried on to my class.

This close to lunch, I had world history. Lucky me, I wouldn't need to suffer embarrassment by being late in front of Kevin, Paul or anybody that ‘knew’ me. Just a general ribbing from a bunch of people who just knew me as Danny McCallum's cousin. I could handle that. I could handle that.

“Miss McCallum, you're aware school starts at eight in the morning, correct?” Mr. Pritchard asked as I walked into the classroom. There was a chorus of laughter, most of it from the boys. I just nervously laughed and found my seat.

Sitting beside me was Ginny Mouser, who shared her name with how most people described her: mousey. I didn't see it, personally, and thought she should try to come out of her shell a little more. Then again, I was relatively introverted, too, so I sorta needed to do that, too.

Ginny looked calmer than I normally saw her. Usually, she looked like she was afraid she was going to do something wrong and everyone would laugh at her. Now, she looked like the day was going great, like she'd just won the lottery or something. It almost unnerved me.

Of course, if I talked to her about it, I couldn't exactly bring up that I'd known her longer than she thought I did. Maybe I could tell her my ‘cousin’ told me about her… I always kinda thought she was cute, though I'd never asked her out. Maybe she was a lesbian and I should now.

That actually made me think about the fact that my sexual orientation had never been something I'd given much thought to since I became the new Grim Reaper. I wondered which one I actually was attracted to. I mean, I liked Kevin, I guess, but he'd always been my best friend, so that wasn't really attraction so much as just a long-standing relationship that had changed somewhat because I had changed significantly.

“Can I borrow your notebook for a minute?” Ginny asked me.

I'd completely spaced out for a second. Damn, that was just… Damn. “Yeah, but I’m new, so I don't have anything written in it.”

She shook her head. “That's fine, I just need to take a few sheets. I ran out of paper a little bit ago.”

“Oh, okay.” Weird, but I guess not impossible. Maybe she just forgot to grab some between classes. It was nothing I should really be concerned about.

But there was still something weird to me about asking for a few sheets of paper.

---

“What took you so bloody long?” Hadraniel asked as I sat down at the lunch table. He looked… Well, about as grumpy as usual.

I glared at him across the table. “A little, oh I dunno, waking me up woulda been nice.”

Kevin was stuffing pizza down his throat. “I called.”

“I slept in until ten, all because nobody could fucking wake me up.” I took a bite of pizza and then said through a full mouth, “It really wouldn’t have killed the guardian angel living in my house to not be such a dick.”

Hadraniel snorted a laugh. “And lose my charm? The hell with that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever you say, I guess.”

Kevin finished his pizza in one giant bite. “When did you get here, anyway?”

“Last period. I had to choke down some embarrassment for being late to class, but other than that and Brandy the Bitch, I didn’t have any trouble.” I took another bite of pizza. “I don't know why my damned alarm went off.”

Hadraniel laughed again. “Well, had someone not shut it off, I'm sure nothing would have happened.”

I glared at him. “Did you shut my fucking alarm off?!”

“Of bloody course I did. I needed some amusement last night after Samael showed up.”

Kevin asked, “Who?”

“Don't change the subject, meat sack.”

“What?”

“As if you wouldn't do it if you had the chance."

Kevin blinked a few times. "I literally don't know what you're talking about. Some Samuel dude made you turn off Dani's alarm?"

"Samael, you sodding… Ugh… Never bloody mind. Just keep your mouth shut about heavenly things you'll never understand."

I elbowed Hadraniel in the gut. "Hey, leave him alone, Ronny," I said, placing as much emphasis on his fake name as possible. "And stay the hell outta my room from now on. Shutting my alarm off is almost as bad as that Sam guy rooting around in my underwear drawer."

He groaned. "That wanker got in your underwear drawer?"

"Were you not there last night?"

"I had other things on my mind. For the Boss's sake, I can't believe him…"

Kevin smirked and half-whispered, "Did he find anything special?"

I felt my cheeks turn red. "That is not something I'm discussing with you."

---

I washed my hands and immediately groaned when I found out the paper towel dispenser was empty. The hand dryer had been dead for weeks (I'd heard about that before my untimely death and subsequent reaperfication) and the only other option was the toilet paper, which I hated using for everything else. Ugggggggggggh… Damned slow ass janitorial workers. Why was the wendigo that handled my paperwork faster at a job that required filing away thousands of souls?

I just swallowed my pride and used the goddamn toilet paper.

Just as I walked out of the bathroom, I got blindsided by people rushing past me from their classrooms. Class wasn't out yet, so why the hell everybody was in a hurry was beyond me. There was a lot of chatter coming from everybody, too, like they were all in on something I didn't know.

I hurried into the giant river of fellow teenagers when I saw Kevin crutching along behind everybody.

"What's going on?" I asked, both quietly and loudly at the same time.

"Yelena Kovits saw somebody on the roof of the social studies wing looking like they were about to jump."

My eyes widened in shock. "What?!"

He nodded. "Yeah. She couldn't tell who it was, though."

I didn't even try to follow everybody else. I knew where they were going: outside, to see the splat. I needed to get to that roof, to find out why this girl was trying to commit suicide. Help her back or guide her soul after, that was my job. Hopefully, I was helping her back.

I found the closest stairwell and hurried up to the fourth floor. The school was essentially shaped like a giant plus symbol, with the central part of the building six stories tall and four wings extending out from there, each one three or four stories tall. The social studies wing was one of the four story wings, and unlike the other three, no windows looked out on it. The only way I’d get to the roof would be to find the access stairwell about halfway down the hallway.

And, because I was stupid, I stopped by the girls’ restroom just before the stairwell and washed my hands again just to use real paper towels.

Naturally, I found the door to the stairwell opened, as well as the door to the roof. I hurried up the stairs, then out onto the roof. There was a lot of gravel on the roof, for whatever reason. I always thought these things were flat concrete. I slid almost as soon as I came out of the stairwell, but quickly regained my footing.

I looked around for the girl, worried that she had already jumped, but I figured I’d be hearing screams or something from the others standing on the school lawn watching the whole thing. Honestly, I couldn’t even hear anybody down there, but we were also on the roof of a four story building.

After looking around every single air conditioning unit on the roof, I finally found the girl, and I nearly choked on my own saliva. Ginny Mouser, the girl from class earlier who’d asked for a sheet of paper.

I hadn’t noticed earlier that she was wearing a black dress, but I did now that it was billowing in the wind. She was looking down at what I assumed was the crowd below, almost like she was waiting for there to be enough people before she jumped. Maybe she did want an audience. I didn’t know, I just wanted to help.

“Wow,” I said, “kinda drafty up here.” I wasn’t lying, either. I had to keep my own dress from being blown off me by the wind.

“Why are you up here, Danny?” she asked, more annoyed than surprised.

“Oh, seemed like a nice chance for a walk,” I answered, though it was obvious that wasn’t the truth.

She turned away from the edge. "Please, leave. I don't want anybody up here."

I shook my head. "Whatever's got you down, you can get help, y'know. You've got friends."

She laughed. "No, I don't. You're the closest thing I ever had to a friend, Danny, and you up and got yourself killed. It's pretty obvious I should, too "

I glanced at the edge of the roof and prayed she'd step further away from it. "I know it can be a little difficult to make friends, but it's infinitely more rewarding than…" Then what she said hit me. "Did… Did you just say what I think you said?"

She ignored me and walked closer to the edge. "None of them will ever care. I've gone through life without any friends, I'll go into death without any, too."

"What did you mean I got myself killed? That was my cousin, not me."

She laughed. "Cut the shit, Danny, I had it figured out day one."

"That was yesterday."

"Danny McCallum dies, then Dani McCallum shows up and pretty much takes over his life? You didn't hide it all that well."

From down below, I heard somebody over a loudspeaker saying, "Miss Mouser, please, come down from the roof."

She shouted back to them, "Be there in a second!" She then turned to me. "I don't know how you came back, Dani, but I was glad you did. You're the only one I wanted to say Goodbye to." She ran over to the edge, then said, "If only you'd always been Dani instead of Danny."

And then, in a single movement, drawn out into a million seconds, she went over the edge.

I ran. I reached out for her hand, hoping to get to her in time to pull her back up. I didn't know why she wanted to kill herself or even what she had meant before she jumped, but I just wanted to make sure she didn't die. I wasn't there to just let someone die, right?

But, as her hand literally passed through mine, I knew that just letting her die was exactly why I was there.

I pulled back from the edge of the roof, not just because I didn't want to see the body, but because I didn't want anybody down there to see me and think I pushed her. It was a somewhat selfish reason, not wanting to be labeled a killer, but it was what I had. I felt tears on my cheek, tears I wasn’t even certain I had a right to shed.

In spite of what she said, considering me her only friend, I’d never really made an effort to get to know her. At least, no more of an effort than anyone else. I didn’t understand how she could have ever thought I was any more of a friend to her than anybody else who talked to her on a daily basis.

I took a deep breath. I had a job to do, a soul to guide to her final home. I felt my cloak change from the dress shape it’d taken into its appropriate cloak shape. I took solace in the fact that I wasn’t wearing that damn stripper outfit underneath like when I took Arkady’s soul to Hell. Granted, I was just in a bra and panties, but nobody could see anything. Now I just needed to find Ginny’s soul, and hopefully out of sight of the giant crowd that watched her fall.

“So, are you, like, going commando under there?” somebody asked.

For whatever reason, instead of questioning who it was that saw me change my dress into a cloak, I answered, “No, I’m wearing underwear, it was just…” That was when I realized it. I turned around and saw Ginny standing there, leaning against one of the air conditioning units, with a smile on her face. “What did… You… Don’t do that!”

She giggled. “I thought there was something weird about you all of a sudden turning into the girl of my dreams. What are you, an angel, or something?”

I sighed. “Something.” I walked over to her and held out my hand. “C’mon.”

She looked surprised. “What?”

“I’m the Grim Reaper, I need to take your soul to the afterlife.”

“Really? You… You really are like an angel?”

“Well, not really like. I am an angel.”

“Holy shit.”

“Well, I dunno about ‘holy’.”

“Then… I’m going to Hell, aren’t I?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, we’ll only find out when we go. If it’s any consolation, Hell isn’t all that bad. Though I do think the JC Penney’s there is still going out of business.”

“What?”

“Never mind, the point is that my job is take you to the afterlife.” I held out my hand and my scythe appeared. “Just hold still, since I don’t know how this works with a soul that’s obviously not in its body.” I did as I did before, touched my scythe to her forehead, and then that bright tunnel of color swirled around us. “Oh, hey, exactly the same as before. Cool, that makes things easier.”

When the color faded, we weren’t in Hell or Heaven or Limbo at all, but instead Mobil Avenue. Nobody paid any attention to us, which wasn’t really a surprise considering new souls ended up there on a regular basis.

Ginny looked around at everything in wonder, clearly in awe of what she was seeing. I saw her look at that bar I went to when I ended up there, heard her giggle at the image of God chugging down beer after beer that was the sign. I could almost imagine what was going through her head.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“It’s called Mobil Avenue, it’s an offshoot of Limbo. Trust me, you’d rather be here than there. Limbo is just a long ass line that never moves.”

She turned to me and I swore I saw tears in her eyes, but before I could ask about them, she just lunged at me and brought me into this hug that almost made me yelp. “Thank you, Dani…”

I let out a nervous laugh. “Just doin’ my job, y’know.” After a few minutes of hugging, I semi pushed her away. “Ginny, what… Why did you do it?”

She closed her eyes. I was right, she was crying. “When you were a boy… When you were Danny, did anyone ever… Did they ever mistreat you? Just because you were…”

If she’d stopped cutting herself off, I’d know what the hell she was talking about. “Because I was what?”

“Dani, I know you were gay.”

I’m all but certain I’d just developed an impromptu tan by reddening my face. “I wasn’t… Whoa, whoa, whoa, you thought I was gay?”

She shrugged. “Well, yeah. You didn’t really talk to girls much, you hung out with Kevin all the time and you never really seemed interested in dating anybody. I wasn’t the only one who thought you were gay, either.”

That explained all the looks I got when I was a boy… “So, are you?”

She nodded. “Yeah, and lemme tell you, as much as I wanted to be proud of it, people took all the opportunities they could to make me hate myself for it.” She walked over to the nearest building and sat down against the wall. “The locker room was always a constant reminder. All those pretty girls and I couldn't be with any of them. Not to mention most of them hated me. I tried to go out with some boys, a couple times just to see how I really felt about them. I never felt attraction, though, and I never walked away from any of those relationships feeling like I'd been true to myself.

"It got worse when my parents found out, though. Every chance they got, I'd be told how I was going to Hell for not listening to God and not accepting my place as a man's future wife. I almost wanted to just resign myself to that, to eventually marry a man I didn't - couldn't - love, just to make them shut up.” She reached up and wiped tears away with her arm. “And then you died. The one person who knew what I was going through, or, well, the one person I thought knew what I was going through. I wish you were.”

I knelt down beside her. “I’d say I was sorry, but I know that wouldn’t help.”

She shook her head. “It’s alright.” She offered a weak smile. “I’m still going to say you were in the closet as a boy and now you’ve got your chance to be with guys without the societal shaming baggage.” She wiped away some tears again. “I’m glad you got to come back, Dani. You were nice to me, so much that I wished you were a girl way back when just so that I could have somebody. Probably wouldn’t have worked out in my favor, but you woulda been a friend, I’m sure.”

I nodded. “Of course. I still can be.”

“I couldn’t be me out in the real world. And with the one person I thought understood me gone, I just needed to be gone, too.”

“So, you decided to kill yourself just because I died?”

She nodded. “Even after I saw you’d come back, I saw you with Kevin. I saw how you look at him, how he looks at you.” She took my hand, so I sat down beside her. “You’re cute together. You always were.” She let my hand go. “On the one hand, I would have liked to get to know the new you a little better, maybe tried to see if I could get you to come over to my side of the fence.” She added a little laugh to the end of that. “On the other hand, I don’t regret what I did. It would’ve been years before I could leave home and be the real me somewhere else, and I’d need to live through so much pain and abuse before then.”

I took her hand again. “I’m so sorry, Ginny.”

She squeezed my hand gently. “It’s not your fault. You’re the best person I ever met.” She leaned her head on my shoulder, and I felt… A mixed bag of emotions that I couldn’t really process. Maybe I was a little gay after all. “So, is this where I get to stay for the rest of eternity?”

I nodded. “It’s not that bad. The brochure says there’s apartments to rent.”

She laughed. “The afterlife is a weird place. Not at all like it says in the Bible.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot in there that isn’t real. Makes me wonder where it came from.”

She lifted her head off my shoulder. “Can you do me a favor and come visit every now and again?”

“Of course.”

“And, make sure that if you end up with anybody, it’s Kevin. I swear, I’m going to ship the two of you for the rest of eternity.”

I laughed. “I’m still figuring that part out, but I’ll keep that in mind.” The both of us stood up, and I saw an actual smile on Ginny’s face. “I’m gonna get back to Earth now, though. School’s probably being let out early.”

“Yeah. See you around, Dani. Oh, and next time I see you, can you show me what’s under the cloak? I’m just a tiny bit curious.”

I turned red again. “Not out here in the street!”