Molly pulled out of the driveway as we all started proceeding into town toward the boardwalk. “What do you girls want to do once we get there?” Molly asked. Amaya answered immediately. “I want to go to the arcade, then I want to ride on the roller coaster, then I want to ride the tilt-a-whirl, then I want to play some carnival games, then I…” Molly interrupted Amaya’s never-ending to-do list for the day. “How about we spend some time at the arcade, then we grab some pizza for lunch, then decide what to do from there?” she said. We all looked at each other. “Sounds good to us, Ms. E!” Allie chirped from the backseat. Amaya muttered to herself, “I want to go on the Ferris wheel, too.” “We’ll get there eventually today, Amaya,” Molly called from the front seat. Allie looked at me, she looked like she was about to cry. “What’s wrong, Allie?” I said. “I just have a feeling that this is going to be the last time we hang out together,” she said solemnly. “Don’t say that, Allie. I may be going home, but we’ll meet again. We’re BFF’s, right? And if we don’t see each other for a while, we can talk whenever we want!” I replied reassuringly. Amaya leaned in front of Allie, overhearing our conversation. “Are you going away, Olivia?” she said somberly. “I don’t know, Amaya, but probably,” I said. I didn’t know how to break the news to Amaya, but as hard as it was to break the news to Allie, breaking the news to Amaya couldn’t be any harder. I knew that Lauren was happy for me, for sure. “Now Olivia, don’t get too far ahead of yourself. I haven’t heard from Meredith. Plus, there are some hurdles that need to be cleared for her to get the go-ahead to adopt you,” Molly said sternly. Amaya, completely ignoring Molly’s remarks, pointed and exclaimed, “Oooooh! The Ferris wheel! There it is!” she said, jumping up and down in her seat as the Ferris wheel came into view. “Calm down, Amaya. You’ve been here at least a dozen times!” Lauren said from the front seat. “I know, I’m just soooo excited,” Amaya said as she was shaking with excitement. Molly parked the car next to the arcade building as we walked in. Allie started to walk next to me as we scanned the arcade, looking for something to play. “Hey Olivia, this may be the last time we hang out together, so I want to make the most of it,” Allie said. “Right, I agree. Allie, we need just you and me time,” I replied. Allie smiled at me. The first thing we did together was play a few rounds of Skee-Ball. “Wow, you’re really good at this,” Allie said as she took a break from her game to watch me. She didn’t know that I had plenty of years of experience playing this game. Then we played a skill crane machine. I tried my hand to win a tye-dye teddy bear, but after five fruitless attempts, I finally gave up. “These things are rigged anyway,” Allie said. “Ooh, look over there!” Allie said, pointing at a virtual reality machine. We both put on our goggles and began playing together. We were in some alien world and I think the objective was to kill some aliens, but I was distracted by the environment. I looked around and explored my surroundings. It looked so real. I remember seeing these VR things before, but I never really gave it the time of day as an adult. I looked at Allie’s avatar. She was a very shapely woman, wearing what appeared to be a latex bodysuit, as she was holding an oversized blaster gun. “I think it’s pretty clear what demographic this game is aimed at,” I said looking at her avatar. “I don’t know, I think I look pretty sexy,” Allie said. We both laughed. “But hey,” Allie said, “At least my character isn’t a guy!” I looked down and saw that I was a very buff man, wearing big boots and army fatigues. I was suddenly thrown in the alternate reality where I was a man once again. I wondered at that point if I really missed it, being a man and all. I hadn’t really given it much thought lately. I was enjoying my new life as a teenage girl, and after I had settled into this life, I knew that I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even with that being said, I still wondered what life would be like if I remained as Chris. I would probably be back at work right now. Meredith and I would probably be looking at adopting a child, like we talked about. “Everything okay, Olivia? You got really quiet,” Allie said. “Sorry, Allie. I’m just really immersed in this game,” I replied. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” Allie said excitedly. After the game was over, the two of us took our VR goggles off and walked around the arcade, looking for another game to play. It wasn’t a particularly big arcade, and it didn’t really have a whole lot to offer besides the games we just played. Molly watched Amaya play some games for younger children, and Lauren was on the other side of the arcade immersed in a pinball game. “Let’s go do something outside, I’m getting kind of bored of this place already,” I said to Allie. The two of us approached Molly and Amaya as loud alarms rang out from the skill machine Amaya was playing. “YES!!! JACKPOT!!!” she screamed as a seemingly endless stream of tickets game poured out of the machine. “Good job, Amaya!” Allie cheered. “Look at all these tickets!” Amaya yelled excitedly. “This should be enough to win that Playstation on the wall over there!” Molly laughed. “You’re only about 12,000 tickets away, Amaya,” Amaya frowned. “That’s okay Amaya, you can still get a lot with those tickets!” Molly looked at Allie and me. “Do you two need anything?” she said to us. “We’re going to go take a walk outside,” Allie said. “Okay girls, but please stay close. And meet us next door at the Pizza Palace at 12:30. Actually, why don’t we have lunch at about 1:30? We did have a late breakfast after all,” Molly replied. “Will do,” I said. Allie and I walked outside and strolled along the boardwalk. “What should we do now?” I said to Allie. “I don’t know, why don’t we just go sit on the beach and watch the waves crash against the shore? That never gets old for me,” she said. “Yeah, that sounds nice!” I said approvingly. We walked down to the beach and sat in the sand, right along the edge of the dry sand and the wet sand that was saturated by the waves crashing in. Allie and I just sat there and took in the ocean air and took in the sounds of the waves crashing to the shore and the seagulls chattering. Allie and I were both very relaxed. For the next half hour, we just sat and talked about our interests, our hobbies, our relationships, and a lot of small talk, in general. Nothing particularly profound, but I really enjoyed sitting and talking to her. I had really made an impression on Allie, as she did on me. I don’t remember ever having as close of a friend in my entire life before Allie. It really made me reflect on what I wanted in life. I knew I had a home to get back to, but it was going to be very hard to leave Allie behind. As close as I had gotten to Allie over the past week, it was getting hard to imagine my life without her. The thought alone made my heart sink.