Lillian’s hands shook. Calling Liam transgender caused him to call her the same. Or was it the other way around? Or, was it actually she who was calling herself that, if he was an identical dual to her in all but one conceivable aspect? The questions raced through her head, which she clutched as tears snuck into her eyes.

Liam appeared equally shook but he saw Lillian’s distress and slowly reached forward to rest a hand on her shoulder. It was a nice feeling; his grip was firm yet gentle and she leaned into it a little as the first tear spilled. He then surprised her by reaching around her with both hands and pulling her into a hug, holding her limp, shaking body. Her thoughts lost cohesion and she just silently appreciated his warmth and presence, hiccuping with occasional sobs, her tears falling onto his shoulder, feeling him slowly stroke her hair and her back. She was haltingly aware of how good he was at comforting people. “Shhh, it’ll be alright, you’re okay,” he muttered soothingly.

A few minutes later her tears ceased flowing and she took a long breath, settling her nerves. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” she spoke softly, the tone carrying more meaning than the exact phrase which was just a canned response she’d practiced.

“It’s alright, I’m here for you,” he said hollowly. She half-smirked at him reciprocating the meaningless gesture despite them both knowing how pointless it was.

She pushed herself off of him and weakly pulled herself up to her feet, then turned and stiffly walked away, through the portal to her side of the wardrobe. She didn’t hear any movement from him so he wasn’t getting up, which was just as well. She wanted a moment to herself right then. She passed through two doors into her ensuite bathroom, flipped on the light and looked into the bathroom mirror—a real mirror, the true reflection of herself. Her eyes were red and puffy, mascara streaked down her cheeks, and she suddenly didn’t much care how she looked or was perceived. She took a moment to cleanse her face and didn’t spare a second glance after checking that she didn’t miss a spot. She strode back to her closet, with not quite a spring in her step but a gait of a certain conviction.

Liam was stood there on her side of the portal, looking through her belongings, feeling the trim of a lacy dress she owned, looking wistful. Her frown deepened and she shooed him away.

“Out. Back to your side of the rift.”

“What? Why?” He pleaded, hands held up and backing up as she stalked after him, backing through the portal.

She pulled out the wand and twirled it once. “This never happened, alright?” She waved it downwards like a hammer at the mirror’s surface…

…and struck nothing, met with only empty air. She blushed and flailed it around a bit more, futile attempts to turn the mirror back, but there was nothing solid to connect. She futilely hit the rim of it, only succeeding in making a dull thunk sound.

“Um… could you help?” She asked Liam nervously.

He wordlessly pulled out his version of the wand, holding it in his left hand, and then they tried to tap them together. Their first try missed, and although they could tap the wands against eachother with a tinking noise, nothing happened. They tried to line up the tips at the right spot and bump them together but it just wasn’t precise enough. She slumped in defeat.

Liam had a grim expression on his face, and for once she couldn’t guess what he was thinking. She said, “so, what do we do now?”

He tilted his head to the side. “We don’t tell anyone about this, like you said. It would raise too many questions. But, I mean, I’m still curious about some things. I want to see what your life is like, if that’s alright.”

She hated to admit she was curious too. Except… “That’s too much, though. The more we see, the more ideas we’ll get. And you remember what happens when we get fixated on something like this.” He nodded solemnly. “Let’s just avoid the hassle. We’re probably just, like, gender-nonconforming. Certainly not transgender. We would know if that were the case. Pretending to be like that will only invite ridicule. We have a job, family, friends… we can’t risk all that to chase after a silly little whim and look like a freak.”

Liam sighed. “You’re right. Yeah. This never happened.”

The two of them nodded slightly to eachother, and simultaneously grabbed the sheets that had fallen to the floor, once again covering the mirror and putting the portal to rest. The unspoken agreement between them was to leave it alone for the indefinite future.

Lillian’s shoulders slumped and she tossed the wand into a random box hiding in a corner. She walked out and went into the living room area of her home. It was a really nice place, she was lucky to have her own posh little house on the outskirts of town, but it got a little lonely sometimes. She didn’t bother turning on the lights and instead stood hesitantly at the edge of the room, taking in the cool blue late-afternoon light filtering in through the thin curtains that permanently obscured her bay window.

She glanced around. Things looked different under the soft lighting and she took everything in as though for the first time. The room was pre-furnished and nothing much had been changed since she began living there. On one wall leading to the entryway she had some framed photos of her family and friends from college. It was something her mother had insisted upon and she had simply complied. When she was out here she would sometimes look over there and mindlessly gaze at the photos. She didn’t even see the people in them anymore, her brain just traced the positive and negative space in each one. There were two that were cropped improperly—one of herself as a baby wearing a frilly pink princess costume, where the baby’s hand reached off to the side and grazed the frame of the composition, and another of her older brother’s graduation ceremony with a whole quarter of the picture taken up by nothing but monotone grey sky—and she felt her brain making futile attempts to adjust them, her will unfortunately not enough to telephotographically conjure professionally edited photos to replace them. She glanced away from that. The only other signs that this room was lived-in were an assortment of items on the coffee table, and the console beneath the flatscreen TV, which along with the bundled cable box held her one gaming console, a Nintendo Switch with the default red/blue Joycons hanging off it. It looked pretty pathetic in size amongst the large bare furnishing.

She collapsed on the couch and stared up at the bare white ramped ceiling. This place reflected her soul. Built on a solid foundation, marketed and sold with the purpose of sheltering a young nuclear family and keeping them cozy, but instead inhabited by her, someone who just dwindled around and spent most of her time there in her bedroom, sitting cross-legged on her bed absorbed in her laptop, doing hardly anything to spruce the place up. She spotted a cobweb.

She wished she could beat the cobwebs out of her head. Really wake her up for once in her dreadful life. There was no question that things didn’t feel right to her. Her view of the world filtered through her retinas and appeared dull, tired, or sometimes even chaotically colored like a circus show she had not the energy to deal with. The problem was her eyes were totally normal, according to the optometrist. And her physician told her her body was in tip-top shape. She had never been overweight despite eating whatever she wanted. Her mind was sharp, too, if the top-of-the-class scores she always earned from tests were any indication. She heard the refrigerator wake up in the other room, announcing to the world that it was ready to do the duty of chilling its contents.

Yeah, it really was her soul that was broken somehow. She always saw other people functioning like normal, living happy lives, unawares of the gnawing existential dread and nihilistic thoughts that churned within her and her alone. The closest person who could relate to that was… Liam. She refused to talk to him though. She wasn’t transgender, and seeing how miserable he was confirmed that if she had a body like that it wouldn’t really make her any happier. He pined for the same crossdressing tendencies she had, anyway. It would be even worse for him to wear a dress than if she wore a butch women’s style. Sucks for him, she supposed. It was nothing but a silly little predilection she carried around with her. She wasn’t transgender. She sighed deeply, pondering how, still, nothing made any sense. The fridge went silent and she blinked, realizing that the evening twilight had passed and she was sitting in the dark.

She pulled out her phone and squinted at the bright screen. Ugh. 6:30PM and she had no energy for cooking. She absentmindedly swiped to the food page of her phone’s home screen and picked Chinese. It would be another lonely night in but warm food in her belly was an easy cure for her melancholy.

Lillian sat up roughly in bed and blinked blearily at the darkness. Ugh. Her sheets were all damp from stale sweat and it felt gross. She cursed herself for putting off the laundry for so long.

Glancing at her phone resting on the nightstand, she saw it was 4:21AM. Her eyes bounced back and forth along the stenciled lettering style. The minute passed and the 1 numeral became a 2, the display shifting two millimeters to the left to accommodate the extra width and remain centered on the screen, despite the fact that in the dark of the room she couldn’t even see the edges of the phone and had no frame of reference as to where it was actually meant to sit. It could start drifting across the table in any which direction and she would have no argument as the dim light was the only thing visible in the world with nothing to bound it.

She flipped on the bathroom light, already staring into the mirror, her apathy letting her only barely wince to adjust to the flourescent light until she saw her own dreadful appearance. Today was Monday, and she had woken up earlier than usual, she thankfully wouldn’t have to risk being late, but no matter if she was early or late she would have to work on this look. If she saw this face as a spectre in the dark of an unlit room, her pale features a stark contrast to her weary eyes and tossed-up bedhead, it wouldn’t have been out of place to float around freely and aimlessly without the framing of the room to ruin the illusion.

She shook her head. Stop imagining silly things. The framing there would be, actually, an actor in a haunted house type deal and sadly she had a far less interesting job. Her job involved pristine dress attire and manufactured appearances under the scrutinizing light of an office environment, where any small inconsistencies, physical flaws or odd behavior, stuck out. She had thankfully learned some tricks to slip past most scrutiny and leave her unscathed, although it wouldn’t do her any favors in the attention department. She usually preferred it that way. It was a Monday so she could get away with less than usual, blending into an environment where her coworkers had foregone the weekend’s rest for their personal enjoyment while she just liked a bit of laziness now and then.

So after a quick shower, she pulled on a comfortable bra, blouse and slacks. She just barely heard Liam’s footsteps through the thick curtain and figured he had woken up early as well; but of course he did, his life happened simultaneously to her own. She dared not speak a word and break their truce. She tied her hair in a loose ponytail and did some very quick makeup, foregoing foundation and just working a hint of life into her soulless eyes instead. A quick breakfast and she jumped in her car to leave.

She parked in the staff lot, shut off her car, and sat there in silence. She was 45 minutes early. She gazed out the windshield at the treeline. She couldn’t make out many details of the foliage but its silhouette was framed against the glowing purple sky as the sun rose. She admired it, hardly minding when halfway through her respite the windows fogged up and she began feeling chilly. She just rested and allowed the world to pass her by for a while. By the time she finally had to get out and walk towards the building, she forgot what she had eaten for breakfast that morning.

Hours passed and she held her arms above her head, stretching as she entered the break room. Morning had passed swiftly and without pressure. She nabbed an apple from the generously provided fruit bowl and slumped into a seat next to her friend Claire. At last, she could relax her posture. Claire was absorbed in a conversation with someone Lillian had never spoken to, so she chose not to interrupt, munching on her snack and observing the two.

Claire was a tiny woman. One of the few shorter than Lillian, and possibly the shortest girl in the office. She was also quite thin, her facial features somewhat gaunt, and her pixie cut pink hair, capri jeans and cropped denim cardigan all did nothing to augment her against her minisculity. Instead, she made up for it all with an endless well of energy, almost seeming to boil over as she gesticulated wildly at the stranger, holding no reservations.

Lillian was a slight bit envious at her casual confidence, how she could get away with wearing something so casual and comfortable and nobody batted an eye. She was the perfect PR girl. Lillian would just make an embarrassment of herself trying to emulate it.

The other person at the table was a larger man. Lillian was pretty sure he was. He was fat, his body round in the hips and chest, stubby in the fingers, yet he dressed masculinely. He had on a fashionable brown leather blazer over a black dress shirt. His glasses were large and thick-rimmed, he had no makeup on despite the outbreak of acne on his forehead, and his curly hair was shaved short. He seemed somewhat more reserved than Claire but wasn’t afraid of a bit of flair if his nose and brow piercings were anything to go by. He was grinning and nodding at her friend.

“What about you, Lilly?” Claire’s use of the awful nickname brought her back to the present. “You’re the plainest Jane around. It wouldn’t kill you to wear something cute now and then!”

She smiled as she realized the conversation topic had matched her thoughts. “I’m comfortable like this. Wouldn’t want to draw too much attention to myself.”

The stranger shook his head ruefully. “You two are the oddest couple around. The antisocial recluse and the flamboyant raging lesbian. Will you just send out the wedding invitations already?” He teased with a chuckle.

Claire responded while Lillian blushed and took a big bite of apple. “Oh, don’t say that, I’m just trying to bring her out of her shell. She’s pretty interesting when you get her talking.”

“Huh. What stuff does she talk about?”

“One time she pulled up the painting, Starry Night, on her computer and—I kid you not—went on a diatribe about the spots and how their places and brightness or whatever was important for… um…”

“Compositional balance,” she supplied.

Claire shrugged. “Art major stuff. She likes her pretty pictures.” She and the guy laughed, and Lillian joined in after a moment, grateful that the tension was lifting a bit.

On a whim, Lillian decided to change topic. “So who’s this dude? What’s he do?”

The man’s eyebrows lifted and he grinned at her. “The name’s Zeus!” He stuck out his hand to shake.

She giggled and met his handshake firmly. “Like the Greek god?”

Zeus nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah! Check this out.” He unbuttoned and rolled up his sleeve, showing off a large detailed tattoo of the god himself, floating among clouds and holding a weaponized lightning bolt.

“Oh maaan, that’s so cool…” She looked down. “I wish I could have something like that.”

He shrugged. “So why not? Ink the Starry Night on your thigh or something.” Claire snorted. “And it’d look great on you, you have such lovely fair skin.”

“Oh…” Lillian blushed, realizing she was the only white girl at the table. Claire was Latina and Zeus was Black. “It’d stand out too much. I dunno.”

Claire smiled kindly at her. “It doesn’t have to be a tattoo. Get your ears pierced. Cut your hair short. Wear some color.” She gently bumped her arm and got a smile out of the girl. “Stop being such a plain Jane and be more of a, uhm, de-licious Lilly!” She snorted. “Or something like that. You’re really pretty and you deserve to show it off a bit.”

Lillian sighed at being called pretty. She didn’t think so. “Thing is, my—” parents wouldn’t let me dress like a queer, she was going to say, but she didn’t live with them anymore, and it would be at least six months or so before she would visit them for the holidays. She didn’t have to prove herself to her family anymore. She huffed and tried again. “With work and all—” I have to conform to a strict dress code, she wanted to lie, but looking at her two coworkers, obviously that excuse wasn’t going to work. “Personally I just… haven’t…” she gazed at Claire and the pieces slipped together in her mind.

Claire gazed at her with this mirthful happiness, but it was a bit more than that. It was playful, even flirtatious. And Lillian had always been envious of the look she pulled off. So, what was stopping her from doing the same? Nothing but herself. Because of the way she was raised, probably, the messages she had internalized over a lifetime.

The one sexual relation she had had before was with this guy back in college. She was certainly attracted to him, and they’d had a nice time together, but something had felt off about it and she had had to break it off. She was starting to have an inkling as to what it might be.

Claire tapped her shoulder to get her attention. “Break time’s over, little dreamer. Time to get back to dragging rectangles around until they look just right!” They both giggled but as Lillian returned to her desk she had a feeling she wouldn’t be very productive. The half-broken web interface could wait; she was hatching a plan for her coming lunch break.