Devin groaned.

It wasn’t as if working at Sheetz was exceedingly difficult, but it could be tough, and it was definitely unpleasant. Devin quickly found out that working in retail was very stressful, especially when the customers were being massive dicks, which could happen a lot.

Truthfully, Devin only got the job to pay for his hormones. As a minor there weren’t a lot of options for him to take when it came to getting a job, and he was lucky that this Sheetz hired him. It seemed like a pretty good deal. A part time job paying $15 per hour and shifts of 20-25 hours per week was an offer Devin just couldn’t refuse.

It was pretty easy to convince his parents to go along with it. In their minds they saw it as “our little boy is so responsible and hardworking”. Occasionally Devin felt guilty for hiding all this from them. He could only imagine what their reaction would be like if they found out why he really got this job.

Devin got along well with his coworkers, at least mostly. He communicated and worked well with them but it wasn’t as if he ever really took the time to get to know them. To be fair, it wasn’t like they did that either.

As for hiding his changes, it wasn’t as hard as Devin anticipated. He was pretty good at hiding his chest, and no one seemed to suspect anything. That didn’t mean he wasn’t stressed out about it, or that he didn’t have any close calls before, but overall he’d say he was successful.

***

“Well, my shift is over. I’m leaving. I don’t care what the manager says.”

Devin looked over to his coworker, Liam, and saw the annoyance on his face. It was true that the manager was particularly stingy on the times when employees were allowed to leave, and Devin was tempted to reply back with a warning of sorts, but he didn’t. Liam was already well aware of the manager’s thoughts in that area, and Devin wasn’t exactly someone who was comfortable with speaking up to people.

So he just looked on as Liam walked out of the building.

Sometimes Devin wished he had Liam’s confidence. Devin never left his shift immediately, as the manager would always give people a hard time about that. But Liam never cared about what the manager would say. Since staffing wasn’t really a problem at the moment, it was a wonder Liam wasn’t fired.

“Devin, did Liam go early again?”

Devin turned around to see none other than the manager, Morgan. “Speak of the devil”, he thought to himself.

“Umm… no.”

“Don’t get smart with me. You know what I mean.” Morgan said sternly.

“He did… leave, yes.” Devin said to her.

Morgan took a deep breath. “I needed him for another thirty minutes. I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to have this talk with him.”

Devin, stressed from the conversation, turned away from Morgan. Devin was always stressed when she was around, which he presumed was true among all the workers there. Authority figures just always exuded an intimidating presence that affected everyone under them.

It seemed that Liam was one of the exceptions.

Morgan did eventually leave with a groan coming from her mouth, granting Devin relief from some of his stress.

***

Devin had lost track of the time. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since his shift had ended. He guessed about twenty minutes or so but for all he knew it could’ve been forty minutes. Work could seriously skew someone’s sense of time.

“You’re good Devin. You can go home.”

Morgan had caught sight of him and apparently decided she didn’t need him anymore. Devin, immediately relieved of all his stress, walked out of the building and went to his car that his parents had gifted him for his seventeenth birthday. The Sheetz was only ten minutes away from his house, which only made the job more convenient for him.

As Devin drived home, he contemplated Morgan’s behavior. She really needed to be less stingy about employee shift times. When a shift ends, an employee should just be allowed to leave, right? That seemed to make sense, but Morgan always got annoyed when employees left immediately after their shift ended. Did she, as the manager, even have the power to get mad at that? Did she even have the power to make people stay extra time? Devin wasn’t entirely sure.

When Devin arrived at his house, he plopped down on one of the couches in the living room and got out his phone, content to browse through social media for however long until he got bored of it.

***

“Are you sure about this?” Julie asked Ronald.

“Completely. I think it’d be a good thing for everyone.”

Julie sighed. “I… I still think we’re taking this a bit too seriously. We might be worrying about nothing at all.”

“Better safe than sorry, you know?” Ronald said. “Look honey, I just want to be safe, okay? You remember how hard it was just to convince them to get the vaccine. It could be nothing, but what if it isn’t? I just think it’d be best if we just talked to them. And I mean really talk to them. Just to be safe. Alright?”

“Yeah.” Julie said. “Yeah, okay. So we’re going down tomorrow for this, right?”

“Yeah, tomorrow.”

***

“You know, my boyfriend is a football player. Your’s is a wimpy nerd.”

Elise huffed. Emma always said anything she could to boost her ego. Unfortunately for her, she never sounded as cool as she probably intended to. Elise found it kind of funny.

“You’re 15, for you there’s no such thing as ‘being cool’. When you’re older, you’ll look back on these days in embarrassment.”

“Hey, I’m cooler than you were when you were 15. Mainly because my boyfriend is a football player.”

“Do you ever shut up about that?” Elise asked. “We get it. Your boyfriend is a football player. Big deal. He’s 15. It’s not like he’s the star quarterback or anything. You really want to wear that as a trophy? You’re not even on the damn cheer squad.”

“Excuse me?” Emma shot back, offended. “Are you saying I’m not cut out to be a cheerleader?”

“What are you talking about? Since when do you care about that?”

“You can’t just tell me I’m not cut out to be a cheerleader. Do you think I’d be a bad cheerleader?”

Elise chuckled. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Alright, I will! I’ll show you!” Emma told her. “I’ll be a great cheerleader! A fantastic one! One of the best ever!”

Elise rolled her eyes as Emma stormed away.

***

Elise sighed. It seemed that yet again, she was up, late at night. She just couldn’t fall asleep.

It was hard. She simply could not stop thinking about Sierra and what to do about her. It was always the same questions that she pondered over in her mind. What would their future look like? Would they still be together? What would their reputation be at school? Was she still attracted to Sierra?

And then there were some new questions that Elise hadn’t even considered before that she was thinking about, such as how her parents would react to Sierra. She hoped they would be understanding. Things were already complicated enough, she didn’t need another thing to worry about.

Elise groaned. She definitely couldn’t sort all this out on her own. She needed someone to help her. She’d been putting off telling someone about this for too long. She got out her phone and began texting a message to Amanda.

“Hey, are you awake?”

After sending the text, she laid her head on her hand, waiting. It was pretty late out, and Elise didn’t know Amanda’s sleeping habits. For all she knew, she may have just been wasting her time waiting for something.

But, luckily for her, it wasn’t long before she got a response.

“Yeah, what do you want?”

“I need to talk about something. It’s pretty important.”

“What is it?”

Elise contemplated what to say next.

How would she even go about phrasing the message? How could she possibly convey what she was feeling? And how could she do all of this without giving Sierra away?

She could say that she thinks she might be attracted to girls. But was that even true? Could she say that and be honest? On the other hand though, how would she be able to get across anything without saying something along those lines?

It took a while, but Elise eventually found a message she was satisfied with. She texted it to Amanda.

“I think I might like girls.”