Cindy walked along the sidewalk, walking so that she'd put her right foot into the concrete squares on her right, and her left foot likewise on the other side, careful not to walk on the cracks, but still keep pace with her friends.

Today, Cindy was wearing nice, close fitting shorts, and a shirt that said "Always be yourself - unless you can be a mermaid, than always be a mermaid."

She'd gotten it when her, Sammy, and Mom had first gone shopping for her new clothes last month. It had been so awesome. Cindy could finally point out all the things that she wanted to wear, and Cindy could tell that Mom and Sammy really enjoyed it.

Nearly all of Cindy's old clothes were either passed to Jason, or given to Goodwill. It was a little thing, but as she slowly made her room more girly, it removed dysphoria she hadn't known she had.

Now August, her family had gotten used to calling her Cindy, and though she noticed that, while accepting, they were a bit unsteady about things at first, that had gotten much better. Cindy was more cheerful than she'd ever been, and it seemed like it rubbed off on the rest of her family.

"What are you doing?" Liam laughed as he walked with her, holding her hand.

"Dunno," she said, "just gotta make sure that my feet land on every square."

Liam laughed, and Cindy heard some chuckling from Sammy who was walking in front of them.

It was a nice, relatively cool August day, and their group of friends were at a little chalk art festival in town. Since she'd come out, Cindy had started going along with her friends to non-swimming activities, now that she felt more comfortable presenting as a girl in public.

They'd just gotten done eating lunch, where there'd been a bunch of food trucks parked outside the local library. It felt so odd to Cindy. Before this summer, she'd never just... done stuff like this. She still enjoyed the usual stuff she'd done by herself for fun, but it felt really thrilling to be more active and get out of the house.

They got to where the chalk art was being drawn, and gawked at the really cool drawings. There was a wide variety. Some where it looked as if the person had to have been painting, they saw some video game themed ones that emulated an 8-bit style. There were a few that were meant to be funny.

Walking around a fountain, Liam pulled on Cindy's hand, pointing to one of the drawings. It was a mermaid, surrounded with a bunch of abstract, flowery shapes.

"Woah," Cindy said, "that's so cool!"

Liam laughed. "There's merfolk all over the place if you look hard enough."

"My theory," Matt laughed from behind them, "is that you two are so crazy about them that you're starting to imagine that there's merpeople everywhere."

"Legit," Liam said, "if you just look, you can see merfolk everywhere. Playing cards, heraldry, they're a common artistic element. That fountain for example."

Matt turned towards the fountain, and bent down to examine the pattern in the metal.

"Oh, yeah," Matt said, "I... I see it."

Liam glanced to Cindy, both of them barely able to hold in their laughter.

"What in the world are you looking at?" Heather asked Matt.

"Don't you see the mermaid pattern on the fountain?" Matt asked her.

She shook her head. "We've really done a number on you, haven't we?"

Liam and Cindy burst out laughing, and Matt turned around with a pouting grin. "You guys take advantage of my gullibility far too often."

"It's only cause we know you're a good sport about it," Cindy smiled.

Matt shook his head and walked off to look at some other pieces of art, though he was having a hard time hiding his smile.

As Cindy and Liam walked along, she noticed an interesting piece of art - a stylized picture, depicting a group of people watering a beautiful patch of blue and pink flowers. Standing in the middle of large, freshly bloomed flower, was a girl, wearing pink and blue.

"You like it?"

Cindy turned around to see a girl who looked like she was in her early twenties.

"Yeah," Cindy said. "Did you draw this?"

"Yeah," the girl said. "I'm taking art classes as the community college."

"It looks very beautiful," Cindy said. "I... I really like it."

"It's a drawing I did," the girl said, "representing my journey in becoming a woman."

Cindy gasped and smiled at the same time. "Are.... are you?"

"Yeah," the girl laughed, "I'm transgender. My name is Natalie."

"I'm Cindy. And... and I'm trans too."

"Aww," Natalie said, "really? You're such a cute little thing. What are you, in high school?"

"Yeah," Cindy smiled.

"I wish I'd looked half as adorable as you do when I was your age."

Cindy's heart fluttered.

"And I see you have a boyfriend too," Natalie observed.

Liam laughed. "Perhaps. We'll see."

Cindy blushed.

"That's awesome that your transition has gone so well," Natalie said. "How long have you been doing HRT?"

Cindy laughed. "Actually, I haven't been doing hormone therapy yet."

Natalie's eyes widened. "Really?"

"No," Cindy said, "I... I had gynecomastia. It makes boys develop breasts."

"I know about it," Natalie said. "But it's good to see that it turned out good for you."

"Yeah," Cindy agreed.

She looked down at Natalie's chalk art.

"Do you mind if I take a picture of this?" Cindy asked.

"I'd love that Cindy!" Natalie said. "Do you think you could take a picture with me, and have it in the background?"

"Yeah," Cindy said. "that sounds awesome."

Cindy took a nice clear picture of the chalk art, then she sat down next to it with Natalie, while Liam took a picture of them in front of the art.

"Can you take one with my phone?" Natalie asked.

"Sure," Liam said, handing Cindy her phone back.

They took it, and then looked at the results.

"That's such a sweet picture," Natalie said. "I'm not sure if you're comfortable with it, but I'm doing some stuff for school, and I want to post this online as an example of the positive effect of art."

Cindy felt a bit nervous.

"It'll be alright," Liam held her shoulder. "Be proud of who you are."

Cindy formed a confident smile. "Yeah Natalie, I'd be glad to do that for you."

"This is gonna be on my website," Natalie said, "but I'd also be posting it on my social media accounts. Is that okay?"

Cindy thought for a moment. "Yeah, that'd be alright."

Natalie gave Cindy a friendly hug. "Well it was nice to meet you Cindy. I'm glad I stopped by right now to see how people liked my art!"

"And I'm happy that I got to meet another transgender person," Cindy said. "I haven't met any others. Not in real life at least."

"Well," Natalie said, fishing a notebook out of her pocket, "here's the URL for my website if you ever want to take a look. That also has my socials on there if you ever want to say hi."

Natalie wrote it down on one of the pages, and tore it off for her.

"Thanks," Cindy said.

"My pleasure. Have a good rest of your day."

Cindy waved bye to Natalie as she walked away, and then looked back to admire Natalie's drawing a bit more.

"I wish I could draw nearly as good as she can," Liam said. "I'm amazed at the variety in values she got in here by blending together seemingly out of place colors."

"Yeah," Cindy said. "It looks amazing. But you can draw really well too. She has a bit more experience than you do, so don't feel bad."

Liam nodded, pursing his lips. "I... I drew something for you. It wasn't anything really crazy this time. I just reused some of the art from your mermaid picture."

They sat down on the wall around the fountain while Liam got out his phone. He sent her the picture, and she opened it.

It was a simple picture of her, wearing a t-shirt patterned after the trans-flag.

"Awww," Cindy said, "I love it. I especially like how I'm standing on my lil' tip toes."

Liam laughed. "I hope you like it, because it was a pain to figure out how to draw legs in that position. There's a reason why I prefer drawing mermaids."

"Well I'm grateful for the effort you put in," Cindy hugged him. "My mermaid-self is still my favorite, but I like this one a lot, because it feels more realistic."

"Thanks," Liam said.

"I love these drawings," Cindy said. "Natalie's right - you're an awesome boyfriend."

Liam briefly looked surprised, then smiled. "So... are we making this official then?"

Cindy grinned. "Can I be your girlfriend Liam?"

"I'd love nothing more," he said.

And then they kissed. Liam had kissed her on the cheek before, but this was finally what she'd been wanting for a while. Since her first kiss with Matt, she'd felt a bit disappointed that her first kiss had such a tarnished feeling associated with it.

But now, she felt that it didn't matter as much. Now, she was kissing the guy, who, more than any other boy, had helped her discover who she was.

It was a few seconds of pure bliss. Cindy did her best not to ruin it. Feeling something coming on, she had adjusted her legs and skirt accordingly.

"This school year is going to be amazing," Cindy beamed.

"How is Sammy feeling about moving to Aspen Ridge?" Liam asked her.

"It's tough on her," Cindy said. "I kept telling her that she needed to stay at South Bend with band, and her friends, but she insisted that we need to stick together."

"She's a great person," Liam said. "Aspen Ridge has a crappy band."

"Don't say that," Cindy playfully hit him.

"Okay," Liam said, "I'll admit. Not being in band, I'm not very knowledgeable about it. But it will be hard for your sister to change schools."

"Yeah," Cindy said. "I... I feel slightly selfish."

"Then do all you can to help Sammy," Liam said. "Lighten her load. She's sacrificing for you, so try to do the same for her."

Cindy smiled. "Yeah, you're right. Thanks."

"How do you feel about school?"

"I'm nervous going to a new school," Cindy said. "But I've got you guys."

"You're aware of course," Liam said, "that people know that we do mermaiding, and think we're really weird. It's not too late to bail out on us."

Cindy hugged his neck. "No way Liam. You're stuck with me."

He held her gently against him. "Then you're stuck with me too."