Ethan
With five days left, we were now faced with a new dilemma. We had one more member in our group and another destination to add to our journey. At least the weather was beautiful this morning.
I got up and immediately made my way to the bathroom. I opened the door to see Natalie using the toilet. But she was standing up and she was peeing. I know I have never been with a woman before but even I knew that was physically impossible. Unless she was…
She turned around and that's when I saw what she was holding in her hand. She was a he. As soon as she saw me, she screamed and I immediately closed the door.
"I'm sorry!" I didn't know how to respond to this or even how to face Natalie with this.
"What happened?" Riley asked, still groggy from being woken up by the commotion.
Before I could reply, the door opened and Natalie came out. "Umm, Ethan," she said to me, "You saw it, didn't you?"
I nodded and Riley seemed to sense some tension between us. "What's with you two?" he asked.
Natalie just replied, "I guess I'm found out."
Riley understood what she meant, "So it is you, Jonathan."
Jonathan
I knew Riley would recognize me sooner or later. Although he has never seen me all dressed up before, I'm sure he would know that my family had one daughter and one son.
"So," Ethan responded after Riley called my name. "Not to be disrespectful to you, what are your pronouns?"
"I'm not trans," I answered, "I'm a guy. I just dress like a girl cause I like the attention."
Riley and Ethan look at me with confusion. "What do you mean?" Ethan asked.
I pull out my phone and show them my photos where I'm dressed up. "I dress up like a girl and upload sexy photos of myself on social media. Call it a hobby."
"That's some hobby." Riley said. "So why didn't you tell us before?"
I look over in Aaron's direction and see him still sleeping on the bed, undisturbed by the commotion. Ethan and Riley followed my gaze and suddenly realized why I kept quiet about my true identity.
"When I was little," I started, "I was always a bit feminine. I knew I was gay when I was seven. Dani knew it too. After she made her debut, I would always try on her outfits for fun. One day, she saw me and decided to make me look like a girl and took some pictures. I made a few accounts and posted the pics of myself online. So many people commented on how gorgeous I was, so many guys wanted me to be their girlfriend, it just felt so good for people to see me. Even if I looked like a girl. Before Dani's death, I never had the courage to step outside as a girl, so I thought I'd do it before I die."
"Well," Riley said, "Aaron might be a bit shocked to find out about you."
"Could you please, not tell him?" I asked.
"Why?" asked Ethan.
"Well," I answered, "He saved me from that creep. And the way he looks at me, I know he sees my sister but he doesn't look at me like everyone else does. He looks at me like I'm someone special." I meant it when I said he was my knight in shining armor. No one has ever defended me, even as a guy.
Ethan looked at Aaron and said, "We promise, we won't say anything. But you will have to tell him at some point, especially if you two get close."
I nodded and proceeded to gather my change of clothes. I didn't mind keeping up with the charade. I hated that I had to lie to everyone about being a girl. But Aaron's memory of my sister was important to him, and it meant a lot to me that he was a fan of hers. I didn't want to ruin that for him.
Aaron
I was the last to wake up, so I had to change and do my morning routine in the span of ten minutes. I was so excited to continue our journey since we will be traveling with Natalie. I know she's a lookalike of her late sister, so I have to remind myself that she isn't Dani. Plus, she called me her knight in shining armor. That alone made my heart flutter. I never thought of myself as brave or heroic, but Natalie seemed to believe I was.
As soon as we checked out of the room, we were treated to breakfast by Ana and Tosh. They went all out, they had fresh fruits, juices, coffee, scrambled eggs, and many other options suitable to anyone's dietary needs. I took a bagel, some eggs and a couple strips of bacon. To my surprise, Natalie had the same thing as I did. We both blushed and laughed about it.
After breakfast, we left the hotel. Ana asked us to come back after the "fake" meteor strike doesn't happen. It would be a fun place to stay again. If the meteor doesn't destroy Earth and we survive, then we'll come back.
We spent about three hours navigating out of Austin. So many cars were blocking our paths and many streets were under construction. We made it out to the outskirts of Buda and we took a break. The heat was unbearable, and since we needed to conserve gas, we rode the entire way with no AC.
"Umm, guys," Riley had called out from the back of the SUV. "We're down to our last two bottles of water."
"I didn't think we'd go through the water that quickly." Ethan said.
"If we don't get any water soon, we might be in trouble. Especially in this heat." stated Riley.
We stopped at a truck stop further down the road and saw many truckers bartering for goods. One of them was trading water.
"Looks like we're in luck." said Riley.
Riley approached the guy and offered two hundred dollars for two cases of water. The trucker laughed and waved the money away. "What the hell is wrong with you boy?" he said, "Don't you know that money is worth shit now. If you want the water, I'll trade you for food or batteries."
"But if the world is ending in a few days, batteries won't matter, right?" said Ethan.
"Wrong son." The trucker replied, "The world ain't ending. It'll start another ice age. All of us here are stockpiling resources to prepare for it."
"You really believe that?" I asked.
"Look, if you aint gonna trade, then pray for rain. Simple as that."
"Everything ok, guys?" asked Natalie.
"Now who is this lovely lady?" asked the trucker, "Is she with you?"
"Yeah," Riley answered, "She is."
The trucker pushed past Riley and I and headed straight for Natalie.
"Well hello there, darlin'," he said to her. "You know, you look like that pop star, Dani something or other."
"Back off, old man!" I said to him, but he ignored me.
"If you blow me real good darlin', I'll give you a gallon of water. A case or two if we go all the way. What d'ya say?"
Ethan jumped in and said, "Forget it, man. Let's go."
"Wait," Natalie said, "I'll do it. It's no big deal."
We all looked at her in surprise. I couldn't let her do this. This is what happened to me. Left with no choice but to comply. It made me sick doing it myself, I couldn't let Natalie go through that.
"C'mon darlin', let's go." He yanked her by the arm and was leading her to his truck.
I had to stop her. "There's no fucking way, I'm letting her go with you!"
The trucker looked at me like my bully did when he was going to beat me up. "What are you gonna do about it?"
Just then, I felt the very air around me change. Everything started to get dark, the wind started picking up, and thunder started to rumble. But all I cared about was the anger inside me, and the need to protect Natalie. "I will not let this slide. You are nothing but a filthy pervert. A piece of shit like you isn't worthy of touching someone like her. JUST GO TO HELL YOU BASTARD!!!!"
As I screamed at him, a flash of lightning struck the old man's truck causing it to explode. Everyone in the stop rushed to put out the fire. Everyone except us. I grabbed Natalie's hand and ran back to the SUV. Ethan and Riley followed suit and we drove away from there. I was still shaking as the thought of the old man doing those things to her reminded me of what I went through with my bully.
"Natalie," I called out to her. "Don't ever say that you're ok with doing that stuff or that it's no big deal. Take it from me, being forced to do something like that is humiliating and leaves you empty inside. Thinking of that happening to you makes me sad."
Natalie looked at me, tears were forming in her eyes. "I'm sorry." She wasn't the only one that heard me say this. Riley and Ethan were looking at me with the same sympathetic eyes Natalie had. Before any of us could say anything, a heavy downpour came upon us and Riley had to pull over under an overpass.
"Wow," Ethan said, "This is bad."
"We can try to collect the water and refill the bottles," said Riley.
We all wasted no time at all, we gathered all the empty water bottles and proceeded to collect the rainwater.