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October 28th, 201X, The Patio Plaza Hotel Restaurant. Three people are sitting at a booth.
Those people are Vanessa Kryzynski, 29, SA. Jessica Flowers, ne Bottle, 22, and Evan Talora, 25. They are settling in to have a friendly chat while drinking coffee at night.
”This is my friend Evan,” Jessica beams. ”We’ve been spending time together during my leave and…”
”He they guy you been cheating on your husband with?” Vanessa cuts in, matter-of-factly.
”Yep!” Evan blurts confidently.
”I don’t like how fast everyone has been figuring this out.” replies Jessica, concerned.
”It’s fine, no one likes Derek, ” Vanessa interjects. ”He sucks. Anyone else HAS to be a step up by default.”
”I’m looking into divorce, but work makes it a little complicated.” Jessica replies.
”She’s waiting for a jet engine to backfire and incinerate him into ash.” Evan notes.
”We ALL are.” chimes Vanessa.
”Speaking of De-flowersing,” Vanessa continues, belabouredly. ”Wanna hear a story about me deflowering a religious dork on a Skeetball table?”
”S-Sure?” replies Jessica nervously.
”YES! ABSOLUTELY!” shouts Evan, who has never wanted to hear anything so badly in his life, which is assuredly going to continue on as a cisgendered man. That’s a joke. Evan is Shelley pre-transition. Her deadname comes up a number of times in the next three chapters and I wanted you to know why people are talking about someone named Evan.
”To protect the innocent, I’m changing some details around. I hope that’s fine.” Vanessa Kryzynski, the world’s biggest ‘Dragnet (1987)’ fan says.
”So we can NEVER know who it was?!” bleats the soon to be former Mrs. Flowers.
”Tell you what…” Vanessa says, picking her tooth with a coffee stirrer. ”Ask me about it in ten years, and I’ll tell you who it was.”
”She WILL hold you to that, you know,” Evan informs Vanessa. A fact he knows all too well. See I mentioned that Evan becomes Shelley and now I’m self-conscious about misgendering her, even though it’s keeping in spirit of the writing.
”Yeah, I bet.” Vanessa replies flippantly.
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