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The Legal Stuff: Bears Know Best  © 2012 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright  © 2012 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface
 
It's been a while since my readers have heard from me, and I know that this isn't the book that they expected to be next. The Standing Up to Life series will be concluded, but I had reached a writers block with the series and needed to take a break. Bears Know Best has been that break, and I hope you all will enjoy it!

Like the first three books I posted here on BigCloset, I will be posting a full copy here on BigCloset. I will be posting it up in 28 installments, but that may change if I feel like a posting needs more. The book has a total of 35 chapters and a short epilogue. The full version should be completely posted by September. For those that cannot wait however, I have an e-book version of the full book available from Lulu.com as of today. You may find it at My Store. My assumption is that the majority of my readers would be more interested in this edition of the book rather than a hardback or paperback. There are two types of eBooks available depending on how you wish to read it. One is the ePub format that you should be able to load on any e-reader (you may need an additional app, but I believe all will read it), and the other is a standard PDF formatted file. I believe the PDF is the best way to read it on a computer screen personally. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it ($8.95 for the eBook formatted files).

Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy reading Bears Know Best!

Dedication
I would like to thank and dedicate this novel to the countless authors and authoresses whose tales I have read online. They have given me hope and helped me to understand myself more than anyone else could. Knowing others are out there is probably the biggest source of strength that any of us can draw from! I would also like to thank all of my readers who have given me such great feedback over my previous novels. I hope you will enjoy this new work!

Finally, a big thank you especially to Carla for all of your hard work in editing my long novels!
 
 
Chapter 1: New Beginnings

I LOOKED AT my backpack in the seat next to me and wondered for the thousandth time if I was making the right choice... Eight years ago, just before my sixth birthday, my parents had their final fight as a married couple and my mom decided she’d had enough and left. Dad stayed in touch with her, but she gave custody of me over to him without question... she knew he would have more money to raise me. In the meantime Mom went back to school, finished her degrees, and then moved north to a town in the middle of nowhere Ohio. It was a place I despised, having nearly frozen to death on many visits. The small town was about as far towards the eastern border of Ohio as you could go without hitting Pennsylvania. That meant even Cleveland was over an hour away by car.

I sighed as Dad navigated the BMW X5 through Atlanta’s busy traffic. I was tired of feeling like I was supposed to follow his footsteps as a linebacker for even the junior high and high school teams, let alone at the professional level he played at. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t a dad that made me live and breathe football... but the expectation was still there. My problem was that the coaches all assumed that his goal would be to make me play ball as well as him, so they pushed me to do it more than he ever did. Unfortunately, all anyone accomplished was to get me injured, crying, or just generally unhappy.

If I took after my dad it wouldn’t have been a problem I’m sure. At six-foot, five inches he towered over most people. He weighed two hundred and fifty-six pounds, all of which was muscle. I could easily see why mom, and later Rachel, had fallen for him. He was a relatively successful player that even had the looks women drooled after. Most people would have assumed I would take after him, but as I grew up I had a feeling that I didn’t pick up much in the way of genes on that Y chromosome he gave me.

Instead, I was every bit my mother’s son in appearance. She didn’t even manage to break five feet in height, being one inch shy of that mark, and I was on track to maybe gaining an inch or two over her according to the doctors. As a thirteen-year-old boy being only four-feet, seven inches tall, and sixty-five pounds soaking wet with clothes on, well... you can imagine how I fared as a football player. Thanks to my dad I was in good shape for my size, and at least I could run well. My flexibility was my strengthevery time we took a physical fitness test that measured for fitness goals. I was able to stretch farther than any of the other boys, and most of the girls when we took those.

All of that led me to having a tough life at school. My classmates were always in awe of my dad’s fame. Sure Atlanta wasn’t a shoe-in for getting to the Superbowllike some of the other teams, but my dad was one of the best players in the league. Kids had trading cards with his face on them, and often he would get ambushed to autograph items when he would pick me up from school. So, on that page, kids wanted to be my friend since I had a rich and famous dad. The flip side though, was that I was the scrawniest boy at my middle school and the easiest target for bullying. It made for a fairly miserable life, not knowing whom you could trust as friends, and not knowing where the next ambush was going to happen.

I could almost deal with all of this on its own, but Rachel was beginning to get on my nerves. Dad was pretty good about accepting me for who I was... I mean he even let me grow my hair out to below my shoulders without getting upset about it. He encouraged me to play football mainly so he would have a connection to me, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think I was likely to be able to follow his footsteps. I figured I’d be lucky to even play as a fourth string high school waterboy. He had taught me how to hit and throw, and helped me to run and stay in shape. My technique was good enough that if I was playing against third graders I would probably have done pretty well!

Rachel though seemed to think he should be pushing me to do better things. She’d even tried to convince him to get the doctors to prescribe growth hormones to me in the hope that I might hit a more convincing stature. He’d been firmly against that, but I worried that she was eventually going to do other things to try and make her step-son ‘man up’ as she was prone to say. I always felt like I was in the way though with the two of them, and that led to my decision to try living with Mom.

He wasn’t altogether thrilled with my idea. “Taylor, are you sure about this?” he asked for the thousandth time.

“Yes Dad, I want to get a chance to get to know Mom. Plus, it’ll football season soon, so I won’t see much of you until after January anyway. I might as well spend the time getting to know her.”

“You can come back anytime you want to, just call me and I’ll have a plane ticket ready for you,” he told me as he led me to the counter to check-in.

“Thanks Dad,” I smiled as I brushed a stray strand of hair out of my face.

He checked me into my flight through the kiosk and then approached the counter. “Okay Mr. Landt, everything is in order for your daughters’ flight out,” my dad grimaced and chuckled a bit, “we’ll just need you to pay the fee for an unaccompanied minor, and then you may escort her to the gate. We do need you to stay with her until her plane has departed the terminal.”

My dad couldn’t hold it in anymore, “Umm... All of that is fine, but Taylor is my son, not my daughter.”

“Oh... I’m so sorry,” the lady sounded mortified, but I could tell she really didn’t care. I just shrugged my shoulders. I was slight enough that with my hair it happened often. It didn’t really bother me most of the time. She proceeded to walk me through the procedures I would have to follow when I arrived in Cleveland. We strolled together through the airport towards my gate.

“Maybe you should cut your hair,” he suggested.

“I don’t want to,” I looked at him defiantly.

“I know, and you know that I’ve fought on your side against Rachel on that one, but I’m worried for you.” He told me sincerely.

“I’m never going to have it easy Dad,” I told him with a forced smile. “I’m surprised she didn’t ask me if I was old enough for the unaccompanied minor program.”

He laughed, “Just because you’re short doesn’t mean that people are always going to think you’re a little kid, Taylor.”

“So if we went and asked a random person in here right now, do you really think they would think I was thirteen?”

He stopped for a second, not knowing what to say.

“You and I both know they might say nine or eleven... twelve, if I’m lucky. Long hair really is the least of my worries - and I really do like it long.”

“Alright, if you’re sure,” he acquiesced.

We spent time just making small talk while we waited for the crew to start boarding passengers. “At this time we would like to welcome any one with special needs, unaccompanied minors...” the clerk announced.

“I guess this is it for a while,” he told me while picking me up and wrapping me up in a hug. He was so much taller than me I looked like a toddler with the way he hugged me.

“I guess so, I love you Dad,” I told him, and then he handed me officially off to the airline’s crew.

“Okay sweetie, you’ll be in first class in seat 2A,” she stated as she scanned my ticket. I pulled my small suitcase behind me and made for the plane. Another stewardess helped me put the suitcase in the overhead bin along with my backpack after I grabbed my iPad and headphones.

Before the rest of the rush began of other passengers, the first class stewardess came up and introduced herself, “Hi sweetheart, I’m Peggy, what’s your name?”

I sighed. Clearly she would be shocked if she knew I was thirteen! I just decided to let her be obnoxious with the baby talk for a few minutes, and if it continued I’d put a stop to it. “I’m Taylor,” I replied politely.

“How old are you?” She asked. I got the feeling she suddenly twitched to the fact I might not be the young child she thought I was.

“How old do you think I am?” I decided to ask back.

That caught her up short, and I sensed she suspected a minefield awaited her. “Nine?” she answered hesitantly.

I forced myself to laugh and said, “Thirteen.”

“Really?” She asked, wondering if I was putting her on. “I’m sorry,” she said a second later when she thought about it.

“It’s okay, it happens all of the time,” I answered honestly, and gratefully saw her distracted by more passengers arriving into the first class cabin. One gentleman looked like he was having a bad day already, and I watched his face fall into fury when he saw the ‘little kid’ sitting in the seat next to his. I just smiled politely, put on my headphones and started up a playlist on my iPad to get me through the wait until departure.

Eventually I had to turn it off and buckled my seatbelt for the departure. The stewardess returned to check on me more than any other passenger throughout the flight. It was frequent enough that the guy next to me grumbled about how he could never get good service. I heard him mutter under his breath, “Stupid little girls.”

‘I’m not a little kid,’ I thought angrily and sighed, ‘that girl part really should probably bother me more than it does.’ I added glumly.

I just shook my head though and put my headphones back on. I was reading the Twilight series of books and just now managing to get to a part I couldn’t put down. I knew it was mainly a ‘chick’ book, but enough of my friends had been obsessed with it that I had decided it would be an interesting book to get through the boredom of the two-hour flight. Not that I figured I would finish it in that time alone. About twenty minutes after the lunch service, the guy next to me started getting loud towards the stewardess. I had been intent on my book until he jostled my elbow.

“What do you mean you won’t sell me another drink?” he demanded. There was a definite slur in his voice that I recognized from some of my dad’sfriends’ parties.

“Sir, I believe you’ve had enough for now. You’re welcome to a complimentary soda, but I will not be selling you another alcoholic beverage on this leg...”

I hoped that he would settle down, but he only got more agitated. “You’ll give the little girl next to me anything she wants, but you won’t take my perfectly good money and give me a drink?” He grew more and more boisterous every moment.

“Sir, I need you to calm down,” she said with a steady voice. By this point I noticed another steward coming down the aisle way towards our row of seats. I found myself taking my headphones off, and protecting my iPad in a protective hug, while squishing against the window as close as I could.

“No I’m damn well not going to calm down,” he shouted. His hand motions were out of control, and it was too late when I noticed my sprite in the path of his awkward hands. About that point another man came up from the back and subdued the idiot with a pair of handcuffs.

“Sir, I’m an FBI agent, and you’re under arrest,” the new man said, as he took custody of him.

“You can’t...” the man railed more and more.

In the meantime I sat there shocked at all of this as I noticed my shorts and legs were soaked with the remnants of my sprite. The stickiness that was settling onto my legs was not pleasant. There was nothing I could do though, as the FBI agent and steward got the man into one of the stewardess seats with a harness on it. When he was out of my row of seats the stewardess came to check on me. “Oh sweetheart, I’m so sorry about all of that!” She said, completely forgetting my thirteen-year-old status.

Of course all I felt like doing all of the sudden was crying. I’d left my dad less than a couple hours ago, had a lunatic sitting next to me, and I was soaked to the bone with my sprite. She brought me some napkins in an attempt to clean up my legs, but I knew the only thing that was going to do any good was a shower at this point. She looked like she had a sudden idea of inspiration, and showed back up with a package of baby wipes she’d gotten somewhere.

“Do you have any spare clothes?” She asked me.

“In my bag overhead,” I told her. She got the bag down, and I tried to root through it without being too embarrassed about my underwear and such. I managed to get a fresh set of clothes and disappeared into the lavatory to change.

My legs felt absolutely disgusting since the sprite had soaked through my shorts. As I wadded up my wet clothes, I looked at myself in the mirror and realized my hair was all over the place. I did my best to brush it back down with my hands, and ended up taking out the black hair band I was using to hold it in a low pony-tail. I sighed, ‘I need my hairbrush, and of course it’s in my backpack.’ I turned and looked at myself in the confined space and made sure I looked marginally okay.

Eventually I gave up looking at myself in the mirror and decided to head back out to my seat. I had to pass by my former seatmate, and could see he was glowering at me. I wondered if we were going to be landing early because of him, but the captain chose that moment to say that we were still going to be landing in Cleveland, a few minutes early thanks to a priority clearance. I reached up to my backpack and found my hairbrush in there, before sitting down in my seat, re-buckling my seatbelt, and starting to brush through my hair.

“Excuse me, I’m Agent Paulski” the FBI agent said as he sat down next to me, “may I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure,” I told him. I fully considered him my savior after everything.

“I understand your name is Taylor?” he asked.

“Yes sir,” I answered respectfully.

“Where are you from?”

“I’ve been living in Atlanta with my dad for the last eight years, but I’m on my way to try living with my mom outside of Conneaut.”

“You’ve never met Mr. Fengster before?” He asked me.

“That’s his name?” I asked in return. He nodded before I said, “No, not until he came and sat down with an attitude on the plane.”

The agent asked me a few more questions before asking one last, “Your last name is Landt... are you related to Jake Landt?”

I sighed, “He’s my father.”

He finished up with his questions and went back to check on his prisoner. I continued to brushout my hair before grabbing the rubber band off of my wrist and redoing my ponytail. I almost felt human again as the stewardess came to check on me once again. “I’m so sorry for all of this... We’re going to refund your ticket money, and also give you three travel vouchers towards future flights on our airline,” she told me apologetically.

“Thanks,” I replied to her politely. Not that I needed any of that... My dad wasn’t lacking in the funds department, and he was planning on giving my mom a sizeable chunk of child support, and putting five hundred dollars a month into my personal checking account.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” She asked.

“Another sprite?” I asked, more to get her out of my hair than anything else.

FORTY MINUTES LATER the airplane touched the ground and things seemed to move in a massive whirlwind. The first thing that happened was a SWAT Team coming on board to take custody of my former seatmate. The FBI agent filled them in with what I had told them as they held all of us on the plane for an additional half-hour. We had been allowed to turn on phones, so I used my iPhone to let my mom know I was going to be slow getting off of the plane. She had been waiting at the gate and knew something was going on before that point. As soon as I got off of the phone with her I called my dad. While mom had been freaked out a little bit, dad was freaked out a lot. He ended up calling the airline and screaming at them apparently. I could tell, because as soon as they released us off of the plane I was the first one off, and an airline representative met me with my mom in tow, at the gate to give me more travel vouchers than I’d already been promised. They also gave me a gift certificate to replace the clothes that only needed laundered.

“Hi Mom,” I was finally able to say and embrace her in a hug.

“Hi Sweetheart, let me take a look at you!” She pushed me at arms length and looked me over. “Your hair is so long!” She paused and I worried I was going to have a fight on my hand to keep it, “It looks great though!” she added with a smile.

I smiled at her, “Thanks Mom,” I said before giving her another hug. I had missed her so much over the years. She looked like my slightly bigger sister more than my mom as we walked down the concourse. Down at the baggage carousels we waited for my two large bags to arrive. It took both of us to get the first bag off of the belt, and as I grabbed my second one, a boy about my age helped me drag it off.

“Thanks,” I said with a smile.

“No problem,” he said with a smile of his own, and I began trying to pull one bag, while Mom pulled another.

“I’m parked this way,” She said, and led off towards her car.

It was a bit of a maze to reach her car through two escalators, and another elevator to reach the right level of the garage. Mom’s car was a newer Ford Escape that had a pretty blue color. The two of us managed to get my bags in the back and I moved to sit in the front seat.

“Ready?” Mom asked.

“Yep,” I replied.

“Do you want to stop for something to eat before we drive out there?”

“Sure.” My one-line answers seemed to flow smoothly. It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen Mom at all in eight years, but two weeks a year meant that I knew things would be awkward for a while. That would probably be enough to make me a little uneasy and shy… But, I also had dealt with serious abandonment issues over the year too. That all made me feel pretty confused about her.

“What do you want?” She asked.

I shrugged my shoulders, “I don’t know, wherever.”

“Italian, Greek, Chinese, or something else?”

“Something else?”

“I know a place that does really good vegetarian stuff,” I made a face, “meat pies, burgers, and most importantly milk shakes better than anyone else.”

She had me sold with the milk shake part... I loved milk shakes, and after the afternoon I’d had, the idea of a milk shake sounded great. “Okay,” I replied.

I settled down and watched the scenery go by. We drove over the bridge on the freeway over the Cuyahoga River and I thought back to a past trip out there when Mom told me the incredible story of the river catching fire. I shook my head, probably another reason I shouldn’t have decided to make this move. Anywhere a river catches fire cannot be a healthy place to live!

Mom eventually exited the freeway and drove down a dizzying number of side streets before I saw a sign that said, “Entering Coventry” and sat quietly as she found a parking space in a parking garage. She fed a meter and we walked down towards the restaurant.

Apparently Mom had been there before, because she was able to navigate a sign-in list, and we were seated shortly thereafter. “What can I get you ladies?”

My mom looked like she wanted to correct him, but I just shrugged at her. “I’ll take this meat pie,” I said, pointing at a meat pie that had mushrooms and Swiss in it. “And a strawberry shake please,” I added.

“Sure thing, and you ma’am?” He asked my mom. She chose a salad with a cookies and cream shake.

“So...” She started awkwardly. “I’ve gotten a new house since the last time you were here,” she started.

“Cool,” I told her, not really excited about it. I was coming to live with her, not to live in a mansion. I’d left that in Atlanta.

“Well, when I bought it they sold it to me furnished, so we don’t have to worry about getting new furniture for your room.” I wondered what she was skirting around, she seemed nervous for some reason. “We do need to repaint the room though,” she added, finally getting to the point.

“Pink?” I guessed for some reason.

I watched her blush, “Lavender,” she responded.

“We’ve got all summer to do it,” I told her, not liking the idea of the color at all, but also not wanting to deal with ladders so that we could paint the room.

She nodded. I suspect she kind of felt the same way about painting. Neither of us were tall enough to find things like that easy. “So what’s with the hair?” she asked me as the waiter dropped off our shakes.

“I just like having it long.”

“Doesn’t it cause other boys to bother you?”

I shrugged, “They already do, I’m one of the shortest kids in the school - even the sixth graders are almost all taller than me. About the only thing that kept them from being worse is who Dad is,” I told her honestly. “I like having long hair, no reason to let the idiots keep me from that...”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes as I sipped on the shake. “This is really good!” I told her.

She smiled, “This place is known for them!”

Eventually our food came and I decided to go wash my hands in the bathroom. A guy gave me a strange look as I came out, but I just sighed and moved on. I found that since I had grown my hair out, it had combined with my short stature to cause confusion with my gender. I didn’t honestly care though, so I just went on with life.

Mom started pressing me on ideas of what color I would want to paint my room. “I don’t know... white...?” I suggested.

She became exasperated with that line of conversation, and started asking about other things she wanted to know. When she asked about girlfriends I just shrugged. “It’s hard to know when someone actually likes you, or is more excited by dating the son of the great Jake Landt. I’ve kind of given up looking, plus school takes up so much time.”

After our meal, Mom and I both hit the restroom one more time, and began the long drive to her... I mean our house now. As we left town she turned the radio on and we agreed on an oldies station. The two of us were soon singing along to ‘Brown Eyed Girl,’ and other hits from the 60’s and 70’s. It was more than an hour to get to the exit for Conneaut. I tried to keep track of the turns she made, but soon got lost. She pulled up into the driveway of a newer, two story Victorian style house. It was nestled amongst other newer houses in the same style, with fairly spacious yards and driveways.

The outside had been painted recently, and a set of steps led to a porch complete with a swing. “This is really nice Mom,” I told her.

“Well, I figured if you were coming to live with me, I should probably think about having a bit more space than I had in the old house.” She told me as she led the way in the front door. I had my backpack on my shoulder as she led me through the house. There was a small sitting area immediately to the right of the entryway that she called a parlor. Across from the entry itself was a staircase that disappeared to the second floor. As she led me down the hallway she showed me a half-bath to the left, and the hallway ended in an open living room, kitchen, and dining room area. The whole space looked nicely furnished, and recently painted.

She showed me a door that led to the basement, which was finished, but currently empty. “I thought maybe you might like this room for a place to practice.”

That statement made me look around again at the space. I played French Horn in band, and it wasn’t exactly a quiet instrument to practice. My dad had purchased a ‘silent brass mute’ for me as a Christmas present last year in the hopes of having some peace and quiet at night. When I put it in the bell the mute caused the sound level go down to a whisper even when I was playing loud. I could then hook up a set of headphones to the mute and hear like I was playing normally. It was pretty cool. Down here I might not need it so much though. “That would be cool,” I told her with a smile.

She pushed on my shoulder gently, leading me upstairs, and then to the second floor. There were three bedrooms upstairs. One was a home office, she showed me the master bedroom that she’d taken, and then the third bedroom that was across the hallway from a bathroom that was supposed to be shared with the office bedroom. The bedroom was every bit of ‘lavender’ paint that I’d been prepared for. It had definitely been a girl’s bedroom for the previous owners. The bed was a full sized white ‘four poster’ that would have been every little girls’ dream bed. The bedspread didn’t help it much, as Mom had used an old solid yellow comforter that she had from somewhere.

A white desk/dressing table sat against a wall with a mirror on it. I kind of shook my head a little bit, and glanced over to see a tall white dresser with drawers in it seemed to match. The closet was my next stop, and I could see that whichever girl had lived here before must have been equally happy with her closet space. It was a nice walk-in closet with organizer bars and shelves. The room and closet were about a quarter of the size of my old room, but it was still quite nice.

“It’ll be great,” I told my mom with a smile. It made sense that she had bought it furnished since her old place had been so tiny I knew she wouldn’t have had the furniture to fill this large of a house. We went back downstairs and she showed me out the back to a grassy yard, with some rose bushes planted along the inside edge of the brick fence. All-in-all, it was a ‘cute’ house. We hauled my other three bags upstairs, then the two of us spent an hour unpacking my things, before deciding to go get dinner out.

By the time we came back, and finished unpacking my things, I was ready to curl up and go to bed. As I put my pajamas on I heard a knock on my bedroom door, “Just a sec,” I said to the door. When I was dressed I said, “Okay,” to mom.

She came in with a glass of water and asked, “So do you want me to wake you up at a certain time?”

I shook my head, “No thanks, I really want to sleep in tomorrow.”

She came round as I lay down on the bed and said, “Okay sweetheart,” before engaging in a ritual we hadn’t done in years - she tucked me in. “I’m so happy to have you here living with me. We’ll try and work on painting this room next weekend,” she added. “Good night,” she kissed my forehead and went to turn off the light and close the door.

I didn’t even stay awake long enough to hear the foreign sounds of a different house that night - I was out.

 
 
Chapter 2: Settling In

THE NEXT MORNING I was woken up by the light streaming in through the window. I stretched out on the bed and gathered the covers up to my neck and looked around. The purple didn’t bother me as much as it should have. For some reason it felt comforting and I kind of liked the color. I would of course have to repaint the room though, as no self-respecting boy would ever have a room that looked like this.

I looked over to the dressing table at my 13” MacBook Air where my iPhone was plugged into it to charge. I could see it was already almost eleven in the morning. ‘I’m not surprised I slept twelve hours,’ I remarked to myself. I went into the closet and grabbed the first t-shirt I found, a purple Aeropostale shirt that Mom had given me for Christmas. I grabbed a pair of shorts, some underwear and socks, and headed across the hallway to my bathroom.

Mom had made a point in setting my stuff up in the bathroom as much as we could before I went to bed last night. I was grateful since that allowed me to hop straight into the shower. I felt like I had washed away years of grime when I finished, only then remembering that I still had the residue of Sprite on me when I went to bed. ‘What a flight...’ I said to myself. I had trouble believing the whole thing had even happened.

That was until I made it downstairs, my hair still wet, and saw the headline on The Plain Dealer talked about the suspect being pulled off of the plane. He was being charged with a couple felonies related to the incident. No mention was made of me thankfully! Mom chose that moment to come in through the front door with a pile of groceries. “Do you need help?” I asked.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” she answered.

I walked out to her Escape and grabbed as many bags as my small frame could carry and set them on the kitchen counter. She grabbed the third and final load herself.

“What do you want for breakfast?” she asked timidly. I suspected she was nervous about offending me.

I shrugged my shoulders, “Do you have any cereal?”

She listed a dozen types, and it became obvious that she had stocked up with everything, since she didn’t know what I would want. I picked a sugary one that sounded good and sat down on a bar stool next to the tall breakfast counter. My phone was on the counter next to me with Facebook open. I had a couple hundred ‘friends,’ on Facebook, but I couldn’t help but acknowledge none of them were really friends. ‘Maybe that can change,’ I thought silently to myself.

All of the sudden I jumped! “What are you doing?” escaped from my mouth before my heart rate went down.

“Don’t you normally brush your hair out each morning after you shower?” Mom asked while running her fingers through my wet hair.

I nodded my head, “I didn’t feel like it this morning...”

“I don’t mind if you want to have your hair long, but you do need to take care of it,” she told me before disappearing upstairs. I was in mid-bite of a spoon of cereal when I felt her come back behind me, and grab onto my head, while taking a tentative stroke through my hair with a brush. I thought about complaining, but three strokes later I was purring.

“That feels really good,” I told her.

She laughed lightly, and said, “Don’t get used to it.” After another minute or so she said, “You have a lot of split ends down here, when was the last time you had it cut?”

I tensed up at that word. I refused to let it get cut! “A year ago...?” I said tentatively. “I don’t want it any shorter,” I told her adamantly.

“I’m not saying chop it off sweetie,” as she popped her head to where I could see it. She smiled to try and disarm the look on my face, “You have to at least trim the split ends every now and then.”

“Oh, Rachel wanted me to chop it all off, so I avoided a barbershop at all costs. I don’t want to lose my long hair.”

“As long as it’s what you want, I don’t have a problem with it — I do expect you to take care of it though.”

I sighed, “I normally do. I’m just tired from yesterday.” She had continued brushing my hair up until now.

“Well, we’ll have to get it cut sometime in the next week. Maybe I’ll get out of the office early one day this week and we can go into town to do it.”

“Okay,” I smiled hesitantly.

“So what do you want to do today? I have to go into the office tomorrow, so I won’t be able to do anything really then with you. Hopefully tomorrow, FedEx will drop off the rest of your stuff and we can get you the rest of the way settled in.”

“I don’t know... I guess could we drive through whatever is in town?” I said while reaching for something idea wise. I already knew there wasn’t much to do in this town. It only had maybe a half-dozen businesses and restaurants, plus a couple of industrial sites, and a few businesses related to fishing.

“Why don’t we do that, and then we can go get lunch and hit the mall in Erie or something,” she suggested.

I shrugged, “Sounds good.”

She smiled and leaned over me to give me a hug. “I love you very much Taylor, I’m so glad you came to live with me.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

It took us a few more minutes to get organized. I found a black rubber hair band that I used to tie my hair back into its customary low ponytail, grabbed my iPhone, and the two of us set off. She drove the streets of Conneaut for about ten minutes - pointing to places here and there, including the old building downtown that housed her small law practice. We even drove by the high school I’d be attending as a freshman in a few months.

As we drove to Erie, I mused about the fact that it was quicker to get to a mall in Pennsylvania than Ohio. Conneaut merged a bit of the quaint fishing and shipping town that it had been historically with a few heavy industries thrown in the mix.

It took forty minutes to drive to Erie, and Mom navigated to a seafood restaurant that she liked. As we took our seats in the restaurant the waiter came up, and for the second time in two days, asked, “And what would the young lady like?” after he’d taken Mom’s order.

“The shrimp scampi pasta,” I smiled while noticing Mom’s eyebrows move.

I didn’t mess with correcting him; since I’d been growing my hair out this had become a daily occurrence. That was part of what made Rachel so angry about my hair. ‘Your dad is a high profile sports star... how can he deal with the fallout if people find out he has a sissy son?’ That had been four weeks ago, and I’d had enough of dealing with her. ‘Of course, she must have felt the same way after what I said back to her,’ I mused. I’d managed finally to tell her what I thought of her, in an impressive number of swear words, and ran to my room where I’d locked the door and bawled quietly until Dad came home.

“Taylor,” Mom said, getting my attention.

“Huh?” I said startled. I didn’t think I’d drifted off that far.

“Does that bother you?”

“Not really,” I answered. “I think it bothers other people more than it does me.”

“You know it’s mostly the haircut.”

“Mostly?”

She sighed. “I won’t lie, you took after me in your slight build and height, even your face looks like mine. About the only thing you got from your dad are his gorgeous green eyes.”

I blushed, and added a sigh of my own, “I know. I really don’t care about what people think... I like my hair long though.”

“I don’t have a problem with it sweetheart,” she told me. “You may have trouble with the kids at school more here though. Jake Landt being your father isn’t going to mean as much here.”

“In Atlanta it only mattered enough to make it hard to know who was a true friend, and who wasn’t,” I was trying not to tear up, as I really was worried about that.

She reached over the table and squeezed my hand, “It’ll be fine, Conneaut really is a nice town.” Mom steered the conversation away from that, and only shook her head when the waiter brought out the food and once again called me a young lady. Once finished, the two of us got up and headed over to the mall.

The two of us searched through the mall to see if there was anything that either of us wanted. Mom joked with me that we should go into Claire’s and buy me some scrunchies. I just shook my head, “Yeah, Rachel would really love that if she found out.”

“Was it really that bad?” Mom asked me quietly as we looked through some racks in Aeropostale.

I sighed, “Not really... just the two of us didn’t see eye to eye.” I paused, “I mean it’s not like she married Dad just for his money and prestige... but sometimes it feels like that’s all that matters to her. He’s like a trophy for her,” I added.

Mom just nodded. We wandered the mall for the better part of two hours before leaving with just a few new shirts for me, and a new pair of pants for her. She had continually, yet gently, prodded me to try and get to the bottom of precisely why I had decided to move in with her. Up until recently I’d done everything I could to stay away from her... I’d been so angry about my abandonment.

I told her some of the truth... I needed a change of scenery. I mentioned I didn’t like the thought of being stuck at home with Rachel, while Dad spent time at training camps and away games constantly. I also told her that I would miss Dad - a lot!

When we reached our house I saw a lady about my mom’s age, and a girl about my age getting out of their car. “Oh, that’s the Brigman’s,” mom told me informatively. “The girl is about your age I think.”

I saw them stare and wave at us. When I opened the door the two of them walked over, “Hi I’m Alyssa,” the girl said as she skipped over to me.

“Taylor,” I said while extending my hand out. She seemed friendly enough. Alyssa easily had eight inches on me height wise.

“Nice to see you again, Alyssa,” Mom said to her, before turning to talk to her mom. “How are you doing Jessica?”

The two of them talked for a moment before introducing me, “And this is Taylor.” Mrs. Brigman extended her hand delicately to me, so I shook it and said, “Nice to meet you.”

“So what are you up to?” Alyssa asked me. I was a little taken aback by her friendliness, but I rolled with it.

“Not much, we just came back from a quick trip to Erie. It’s so weird that it’s quicker to drive to another state to go to a mall!”

She laughed, “Yeah, we’re not exactly the center of civilization out here.”

“Yeah… definitely not in Atlanta anymore!”

“Is that where you’re moving from?” She asked me.

I nodded, “I’ve been living with my dad for the last eight years, but decided it was time to live with my mom for a change.”

She gave me a look that seemed to imply she understood there was more I wasn’t saying. “What are you doing now?” She asked.

I took a quick glance at my phone and saw it was about four in the afternoon. I shrugged, “I don’t really know. About as far as Mom and I got was planning this morning.”

“Why don’t you come over?” She suggested.

I looked over at mom, to see she and Alyssa’s mom had stopped talking. “Why don’t you,” Mom suggested.

“Okay,” I told Alyssa.

“Great!” She smiled, before dragging me off to her house. As we entered I could tell her house was a bit bigger than ours, but was similar in style. I didn’t know where she was going to lead me, but upstairs to her room wasn’t my first guess.

As we entered I had a second of thought, ‘Umm... should I be up here?’ I mentally shrugged though, and had a seat on a beanbag chair she pointed to.

“So what grade are you in?” she asked me.

“I’m going to be a freshman,” I told her. “You?” I asked hesitantly when I noticed her expression. I guess she thought I was younger.

“Same,” she said. “So you haven’t always lived with your mom?”

“Not since my parents got divorced.”

“Why did you end up living with your dad?”

I sighed. “Mom thought I’d be better off with him, since he has more money.”

“More money?” She asked, questioningly.

“A lot more money…He’s kind of a famous football player,” I told her while feeling my face turn red.

“Really?”

“Yeah, he’s a linebacker for Atlanta.” I answered, wondering where this was going to lead. I wasn’t really planning on telling my life story to everyone - especially this, but Alyssa seemed really nice. I looked at her and wondered if I would end up dating her. She was really pretty, and I had no doubt she had tons of friends at school. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see that she did cheerleading or something, but there weren’t any pictures on the wall to clue me in there. I couldn’t think of her like that for some reason though — and that bothered me.

“So why’d you move away from your dad?”

“I really don’t plan on telling my life story to everyone...” I started with a smile.

“You don’t have to...”

“No, you’re different for some reason,” I told her. “I hope we’ll be friends,” I said with a smile.

“Me too!” She said.

“Well, I guess it’s for a bunch of reasons... but mostly my dad got remarried. Rachel’s not bad... but she and I have been arguing about things like my hair, sports... and just about everything.”

“That sucks,” she said. “What did she want you to do with your hair?” She asked, and surprised me by sitting up and reaching for my hair to look at it.

I was frozen by a thought all of a sudden, everyone else today seemed to think I was a girl... did Alyssa think that right now too? If I told her I was a boy, her age, this shrimpy, that looked like a girl... what was she going to say? I have no idea what she thinks of me right now...

I sighed, “She thought I should cut it a lot shorter,” I decided to hedge, “she didn’t like how long it is.”

She nodded, “It could use a trim, I can’t believe she’d insist on you cutting it shorter. Is she some sort of butch kind of woman that she thinks you should have it buzz cut or something?” She was jesting, but in a way she didn’t know how close she was to the truth.

I nodded, “Sort of, she thought I should cut it that way, but she’s more of the Barbie Doll type.”

Her face twisted in true confusion, screwing up her eyebrows, and twisting her mouth, while she said, “Huh?”

“She wanted me to look more like a boy, to be more like my father,” I told her.

She still didn’t get it, “Why would she want her step-daughter to look like her son?”

“Because I’m a boy,” I told her.

“Oh.” She said.

There was a tenor in her voice that made me think she didn’t believe me. She stared at me some more, and shook her head, “Don’t be mean, you’re making fun of me,” she said with a glare.

“Huh?”

“There is no way you’re a boy,” she said self-assuredly.

I sighed. “I know I look like I’m a girl, that’s her problem with me. I swear I really am a boy. I don’t really feel like proving it to you,” I added embarrassed.

Her face changed back to horror, “You really are serious?!?”

I nodded and felt my face growing wet.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to be mean,” she told me, while coming over to give me a hug. The touch surprised me, I figured she’d just start laughing and making fun of me next. That had happened several times to me when I thought I was close to gaining a new friend. Anna had been the last one to do that. Ten minutes marked the shortest friendship ever before - at least I’d lasted longer with this one.

“I’ll go now,” I told Alyssa.

“Huh?” She seemed to be perpetually confused.

“I figure you won’t want to hang out with me if you thought I was a girl when you first met me.”

“Why would that matter?”

I shrugged while I wiped my eyes with a bit of the sleeve of my shirt, “It has with everyone else I’ve met.”

“You seem nice enough, I’m sorry about the assumptions I made,” she smiled caringly.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“I do agree partially with your step mom though,” she told me.

“What about?”

“You do need a haircut, but I think it would be stupid to cut all of it off though.” She added.

I sighed, “Mom said the same thing today. Something about split ends,” I told her.

“So why do you have your hair so long?” She asked me.

“I just like it longer,” I told her honestly.

She peppered me with questions about my hair, Atlanta, my dad, what music I liked, and other topics for two hours before we moved down to the basement where they had a home theater setup. It was a cozy room; about in the same relative place as the room my mom suggested we make a practice room. “My dad is crazy about sound systems, and having a good TV,” she told me as we sat down on the couch closest to the TV.

She put in a random movie from the shelf, and the two of us kept talking for most of the movie. Her mom came down and saw us sitting on either side of the couch talking at each other. “You two seem to be hitting it off,” she said with a smile. It had taken us several minutes to even notice her standing there.

“Taylor is awesome,” Alyssa said.

I blushed, embarrassed. I mumbled a ‘thanks, so are you,’ before turning to her mom the rest of the way.

“Taylor, your mom accepted my invitation to come over for dinner tonight,” she started. “Why don’t you two go wash up and help me set the table?”

Alyssa responded, “Okay,” for us, and then led me back upstairs to the dining room. We set about putting out the plates and silverware for the meal, and then heard their doorbell ring. Alyssa and I walked over to the door and found my mom on the other side.

“Hi Mom,” I told her as the three of us walked back to the dining room.

“It sounds like you two have hit it off,” Mom said to us, sending me into another blush attack. I think she thought the two of us were falling in love or something. I suspected it was more a close friendship that was forming. Over dinner we were introduced to Alyssa’s father when he came home and just had a good time talking with everyone. There was never a comment about my gender, and I got the impression that Alyssa’s dad thought I was a girl. I felt like her mom might have figured out I was a boy, but I wasn’t sure since no pronouns were ever used.

Alyssa and I just had fun talking with each other and sharing things we had in common. She apparently also played French Horn in band, and the two of us spent hours talking about the high school marching band there. In Atlanta I had been getting ready to move up to a competitive marching band that did a national circuit of competitions... it sounded like the band at my new high school was going to be the complete opposite. They did a ‘show style’ that sounded like it was more of a fun half-time show than a competitive show. It sounded like concert band would be a lot of fun though.

“You know there’s a really good youth orchestra that The Cleveland Orchestra sponsors that you could possibly try out for too,” she had added, and gave me a hope that if I stuck around long enough there might be some neat opportunities. Auditions were in the spring though, so I’d have to just settle for Conneaut for now.

After dinner, Mom convinced me it was time to head home. “I’ll try and come by tomorrow,” Alyssa told me as I was leaving.

“That would be great Alyssa, I had a really great time today,” I told her.

As I headed back home I couldn’t help but think I might have a real friend. ‘Don’t get your hopes up Taylor, she’ll probably run away the second the rest of the kids decide you need to be squashed.’

Mom must have seen something in my expression as we walked in the door, because she gave me a hug. We spent the night hanging out around a movie and a bowl of popcorn. When I went to bed I couldn’t help but think about how many times I’d been mistaken as a girl that day, and before that. The thing that bothered me the most was that it didn’t really bother me. It wasn’t like I wanted to be a girl, but being accused of being one didn’t get under my skin like it probably should have. Then there were the other issues too. My musing and the room I fell asleep in, caused me to have dreams that no boy should ever have.