Tiny drops of rain fell reluctantly onto the frosty surface of the window, as if the sky was trying to hold back the tears that were coming.
The silence that permeated the room was not the gaping kind; the presence of each other filled it perfectly. Adria sat by the window, gazing outside, while Lucille was enveloped in a blanket on the couch, sneaking glances of Adria in between sips of hot tea, which she cupped in her hands. Lucille could not believe the events of the last day had actually occured. Nothing felt real when she thought logically, but she was intuitively filled with a sense that this was the most real thing that had ever happened to her. Her best friend, her everything, whom she had believed had disappeared forever since her runaway two springs ago, was back, and male. Almost two years had gone by since that day Adria left; Lucille had become introverted, shy, even depressed, stuck in a shell of herself. Each day was just going through the motions. She was so reliant on Adria before, and the sudden disappearance was like tearing out a tooth. A numb, constantly beating pain, a gap too big to fill. But now, everything was flipped upside down. Adria had given her a reason for leaving, and a promise that it wouldn't happen again. Lucille found it hard to believe that the same girl she had known and loved as a friend for most of her life was suddenly the most beautiful guy she had ever seen, and painfully in love with her, which Lucille seemed to be as well without realising. The same mind, heart and soul was still there. Adria still had golden brown eyes, but instead of admiring them as he had before, Lucille found her own eyes were anchored to them. The same dark, shiny hair, except the lustrous curls that she had envied were replaced with a short crop. Skin the colour of roasted almonds, that she had failed to replicate with fake tan those years ago, was now covered in golden hairs on his thin arms. And the most shocking change: Adria's womanly shape was switched to the lanky body of a teenage boy. If she had found Adria slightly awkward in her beauty before, now he was the perfect balance of intensely gorgeous and not trying to hard to flaunt it either. Lucille couldn't help but open her mouth wider as she contemplated this. Her jaw clanked on the rim of the teacup and this set off the shaking of her hands. She lost hold and spilt the tea on the blanket. "Oooopss.... I'm so so-" Adria cut off her words. "It's fine". His voice was like silk, Lucille noted, as he went back to the kitchen.
He approached her tentatively with a cloth, and wiped the blanket. It was weird to be near her again after so long, and now all the chemicals between them were changing the way it felt to be around each other. They used to be inseparably linked by the arm, and now the air seemed to buzz with electricity when they were in the same room, like they were magnets that wanted to touch but were pulling away at the same time. Adria had spent the last year thinking about how it would feel like to see Lucille as a man, and it felt right, in a way. Adria was prepared to take any measure so that Lucille could love Adria back, any form or shape. That hadn't mattered when she got the sex change and became a he, because Lucille was the thing that Adria's world depended on. Just the knowledge that Lucille could love her if she became a him was the reason Adria did all this. Being male suited Adria fine. Now he had wiped hours of fussing hours over clothes and make up and replaced it with things like being outside and playing video games. Adria had spent the last 2 years getting used to being male, and preparing for seeing Lucille again. The first 9 months was filled with surgery and pain. The next year and 2 months were for getting used to his body. He had followed his European roots to Spain, where no-one would recognise him and he could carry on with life unnoticed. At 17, he was old enough to get a job on a small farm as a farmhand, and was provided with food and a bed in the barn. The long Spanish summer and the peaceful fall provided him with plenty of time to reflect on his decision and understand himself as a man. In fact, he even had a brief fling with the farmer's youngest daughter, Eva, to get better at kissing girls, but he broke it off within a few days. After 9 months of Spain, he had come back to America and attended high school 10 miles away from Lucille's high school, Fall Oaks Senior High, for half a year, before coming back to reunite with Lucille. She was as beautiful as ever. Long hair the colour of strewn gold, piercing green eyes, perfect lips and porcelain skin. But it was never Lucille's looks that attracted Adria to her; it was her divine, positive, whimsical and brave personlaity. She was a fighter, full of belief in the world, kind and caring, always looking up when things were down and helping Adria to accept himself when he was a young girl.
They had been friends for 11 years, since they were both only seven. Adria hadn't begun to like Lucille as more than a friend until Adria went on a date in Eighth Grade and had her first kiss with a boy named Louis Miller. It felt wrong, horrible, and Adria started to realise that she would never be physically attracted to guys. Over the next year, Adria began to look at girls in a different way, especially Lucille, and felt scared to tell anyone in fear of being judged. By the start of Sophomore year, at age 15, Adria felt that she had to do something about it. So she confided in her best friend, Lucille, who was confused and slightly horrified, but tried not to judge her. Then, when Adria tried to say how she felt about Lucille, Lucille had pushed her away. "I will never feel that way about a girl," Lucille had said. Lucille tried to distance herself, but this only made it worse for Adria. She knew there had to be a way to make everything work, and so she came up with a plan. After arguing with her parents for many months, Adria told them that she felt wrong in the body she was in and convinced them to use half of the money in her college fund so that she could get a sex change to a male, as long as it meant that she would have a life set up for herself in 5 years time. They gave her five years of freedom and enough money to live comfortably as long as she stayed out of trouble and visited them every year, and kept the promise to set up a new life. This whole time, Lucille and Adria stayed friends, but Lucille felt uncomfortable being around Adria when others were around. Lucille kept Adria's secret like the loyal person she was. Then, on a spring day in Junior year, Adria disappeared, leaving her life as a girl forever.
