Offer her a warm bed, an open heart, and no more secrets.

You watch as warm glow of the setting sun kisses Ella's skin and realize that you can't risk losing her by giving anything less than all you have. Sure, it's terrifying, but with your bestie looking so hopefully at you with those deep brown eyes, you decide you want to be the person she sees in them. You reach out an immeasurable chasm to grasp her hand in yours and say, "Of course you can stay with me...wherever that ends up being. First, I just have to tell my dickhole dad that I'm a girl now and I love it."

Ella squeezes your hand tighter and looks so rosy cheeked and resolute that you get a contact high self confidence. You dial up your dad, who immediately asks why you cut school today, and you answer honestly. "Well, dad, last night I sucked the bimbaby sitter's club and became a bimboi named, Amy, but honestly I've always been Amy. I didn't know if you'd kick me out when you found out, so I kept it a secret. Then my best friend clocked me as a secret bimboi like right away, and we decided to go to Dinoverse and swap spit instead of get high and spit out of King Rex's mouth like we normally do, and one thing led to another and now Ella's a bimboi too and I think she should crash with me until she figures things out with her family. I'd rather that be at my house, where in theory at least, I'm loved, protected, and supported, but I'd rather spend the night under an overpass with her than one more in a comfy bed in the closet."

Ella's jaw just about touches the floor. You have to say, you didn't exactly see it coming either. To this point your whole relationship with your father worked under the unspoken agreement that he buys you whatever you want in exhange for the privilege of being an emotionless prison guard that gets to badger and belittle you for your lack of ambition. You actually started to believe it yourself. You thought you were lazy because everything seemed so hopeless and draining you couldn't find the energy to try. You bought the lie that you were a coward, just because you are scared all the time as opposed to having a proportional, even predictable reaction to bullying and trauma. You see now that you just needed support to be strong, back up to be brave, and some small sliver of hope to be hopeful.

Hope is dangerous. Hope can get your jaw broken and the locks changed. Hope can get you killed. Hope isn't fair and it isn't kind and it doesn't care about you. On the other hand, if you can survive long enough to benefit from it, sometimes hope can be rewarded in remarkable ways. "I...I wish I had said something sooner, but I would rather you be happy and safe than fit in whatever box I imagined for you. I don't blame you for being angry...for not trusting me. We need to talk...I need to talk more openly. I hope we can. I...love you. Please come home...Amy, and bring Ella...but she has to sleep in the guest room."

You laugh a little at the extremely dad rule tacked on at the end, but also find it oddly comforting that he still cares enough to make a dumb rule for you to break at the first opportunity. Tears are streaming down your face as you say, "I love you" to your father for the first time since your mother died. There is a lot of messy, arduous, boooooring work ahead before you can imagine having anything like a healthy relationship with your dad, or even with Ella for that matter, but at least you can imagine it now.

You say goodbye to your father and pull Ella in close as you watch the sun set over the overgrown forest and winding paths of the theme park. It's the time of day and the kind of surreally beautiful view that can make you believe magic still exists. With Ella by your side and an actual home to go home to, you feel a little of that magic in the air. You still have way more questions than answers about who you are, what Ella is to you and whether you can make this new dynamic work, and what the future lies, but for the first time since you can remember, you welcome the uncertainty.

There will probably be plenty of dark days ahead, but you will fight for every scrap of sunlight and magic you can get. You don't know how things will end up, but you welcome this magical...