I wasn't sure why I decided to do it. Scratch that – I knew exactly why I had done it. If I hadn't done it then I would have just been left to rot away in that house, becoming nothing but another of the Morris' daughters to be an uneducated housewife, as per my family's values.

The military, combat, etc. – that was what I lived for. I didn't necessarily enjoy the strictness, but I couldn't deny that it fascinated me. All of the boys in my family had gone to Sina Academy, an elite military school in the capital city of Stohess; perhaps that was why I was so interested, because I had seen my cousins go off before me. Maybe it was simply because I was denied the opportunity.

So I ran away. I packed several changes of clothes, stole an exorbitant amount of money from my parents (we were a rich family, so it wasn't as if I was incapacitating them), slipped into an old set of my cousin Emile's clothes, and hopped out of my bedroom window, the note I left only detailing that I couldn't stand being constrained by such a misogynistic household and that I would contact them once I was of legal age.

Where did I run away to? None other than Sina Academy – but not before getting a male set of clothes, a chest binder, and a haircut.

Did I mention that Sina Academy was all-male?

"Parker!" someone called from behind me. I turned over my shoulder to see Eren Jaeger running down the hall to catch me, his friend Armin flailing behind him. The blonde tripped over a paper that had fallen out of Eren's bag and went sailing into the floor, only stopped when Marco Bodt, in passing, caught him and set him upright. By the time Armin's fall had finished transpiring, Eren none the wiser, the tan-skinned green-eyed boy was directly in front of me.

"Yes?" I questioned, confused.

"How did you do on the MH exam?" he asked.

MH was short for Military History, our shared final class of the day. It was taught by one of the only female teachers in the entirety of Sina Academy, Petra Ral. We had just had our asses handed to us that day in the form of a brutal midterm exam.

"I don't know," I answered honestly. "I know I got the question about the Battle of Bunker Hill, but other than that it's kind of all up in the air."

Armin finally made his way over to us, shoving the paper he had slipped on into Eren's satchel in irritation.

"Well, we know Armin made a hundred," Eren said, affectionately ruffling his friend's hair. Armin batted his hands away.

"I don't know. That was a hard test. I'm with Parker," he said.

"Anyway, the real reason I wanted to talk to you was to ask if you wanted to go to the burger joint again today," Eren said, changing the subject.

"You guys know I have this time reserved for Mr. Ackerman," I said. "I can't skip his tutoring."

"Come on, Parker!" whined Eren. "You can't blow him off one time? On a Friday, no less?"

"If I want to pass Anatomy I need to go to tutoring."

"Just let him go to tutoring, Eren," Armin said. "You promised Mikasa you'd spend some time with her today, anyway."

Eren's shoulders slumped slightly.

"I forgot about that," he murmured. "I guess we wouldn't have been able to hang out anyway."

"It's fine. Maybe we could go out tomorrow. I know for a fact that I'll have nothing to do then," I offered. His face lit up again. He was so easy to read it was cute.

"I'll take you up on that offer!" he exclaimed. Armin nudged him and tapped his wrist, indicating they were going to be late for something. Eren's eyes shot open and he raced off.

"I'll text you!" he called over his shoulder as Armin chased after him.

I shook my head. I considered it a miracle that Armin was able to keep up with the boy as well as he did.

I turned around and resumed my walk to the Anatomy professor's office. The truth was that I didn't need Anatomy tutoring – I was practically at the top of the class. The real reason I went to his office after school every day was just to talk to him. Eren and Armin might have been good friends, but I considered my professor to be my best friend.

I finally rounded the corner and pushed open the door, gently closing it after entering the room. Levi was sitting behind his desk and shuffling through some papers on his pristine desk, his reading glasses slung over the breast pocket of his crisp dress shirt. I thought he looked remarkably attractive like that, but I would never say that out loud.

"Hanji, I swear to God if you do it again-"

"It's me, Levi," I said, knowing he would recognize my voice. He looked up and sighed, tipping his head back.

"Thank God," he murmured. "If Four-Eyes shows up again, I will fucking end her."

I took a seat in the chair across from him and placed my satchel on the floor.

"What is she doing now?" I asked, genuinely curious and genuinely amused.

"She's just been opening my door and throwing bread in my office. All day."

I didn't even bother to conceal my laugh.

"Nice," I snorted. Levi glared at me before pushing a stack of bread slices at me.

"Look at this shit," he groaned.

"It looks more like bread to me."

"I will shove all of it so far down your throat-"

Suddenly the door opened and several bagged loaves of bread hit the professor in the face. He reeled back before slamming his hands on his desk and standing up.

"Hanji!" he roared. "What the fuck!?"

Hanji's loud cackling could be heard receding down the hallway. Levi got up and slammed the door, locking it this time.

"This way Shitty-Glasses can't barge in again," he explained.

"I thought it was so no one could help me when they heard me scream."

"That too," he said, walking back around his desk to sit in his chair once more. He picked up one of the loaves of bread and read the packaging. "Gluten free. I can actually eat this."

"I didn't take you for someone to follow a fad diet," I said.

"I have celiac disease," he said dryly. "Don't mock me, kid."

"It's not mocking. It's belittling."

We went on like that for the better part of an hour, exchanging sarcastic remarks and stories and everything in between. When the clock on his desk read four o'clock Levi checked his watch to confirm the time and then muttered something.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I just remembered that there's a staff meeting at 4:15," he said. I grabbed my backpack and hoisted it into my lap.

"I won't keep you, then," I said, disappointed that our conversation was cut short (yes, they usually went on for longer) but not about to insist that he stay.

"You live on campus, right?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Dorm 343. Why?"

"What if I take you out to eat after the meeting is over?"

I was slightly taken aback. Never in our two-year-long friendship had he ever offered to take me out anywhere, and I hadn't pushed it. I had just assumed that teacher-student outings were nearly as taboo as teacher-student relationships, and I had thought about teacher-student relationships quite a lot over the previous two years. I voiced this concern to him and he just shook his head.

"It'll be fine. It's not against any rules."

"Just making sure. I don't want you getting fired, you know."

"How considerate of you, Parker," he scoffed.

The way "Parker" rolled off his tongue made me wish he had said "Caroline" instead. He had this incredible voice, and this incredible (if a bit short) body, and this incredible face, and this incredible sense of humor that could have me shaking in my seat. And God his eyes were ridiculously silver. It took all I had not to stare at him every time I saw him.

"I'll take you up on that offer, then," I said, concentrating on not outing myself right then and there. He nodded and stood, grabbing his jacket and slipping it on over his arms. I turned and left.

As I walked down the hall to my dorm room – the room I shared with, thankfully, no one – I could only think about one thing: how I was absolutely, completely, totally, ridiculously attracted to my thirty-four-year-old Anatomy professor.

He took me out to dinner that night, and the next Friday night, and the next. It became something of a ritual for us, talking about everything and nothing over a bowl of soup or a burger or something else that was relatively cheap. And every Friday night I got closer and closer to telling him the truth, that I was a girl and that I was undeniably infatuated with him. I highly doubted that would go over well, however. I had successfully pulled off my charade as a male for three-and-a-half years, not once slipping up. I couldn't throw away my chance at a future for a silly teenage crush, much less a crush on a man who was significantly older than me.

The unthinkable happened.

I never should have given him my dorm number. None of it would have happened if I hadn't let that slip during our conversation on what Levi and I had dubbed "the Day of the Bread." He somehow remembered that I lived in 343, somehow remembered that I lived alone, somehow walked in on me when I was in the shower –

And now I sat on my bed, head in my hands and hair dripping wet and chest binder lying forgotten on the table, trying to think of something to say to the man who sat in a chair in front of me.

"I'm waiting, brat," he said harshly.

"Just shut up!" I snapped, glaring at him. "I know I lied and I feel like shit about that, but at least let me formulate a coherent sentence about it."

"Who exactly do you think you are, brat?" he asked darkly. "Who do you think you are to talk to me like that?"

"Someone who is desperate and scared out of their mind."

I placed my forehead in my palms again and groaned. I could feel my heart absolutely pounding in my chest, my blood pulsing through my veins and throbbing in my head. I felt like real and literal shit, and I wanted nothing more than to just disappear into the ground.

I inhaled and rubbed my face, forcing myself to look at the man I was so enamored with. He no longer wore the at-ease expression he always wore in my presence; no, now he was completely guarded against me, and I was going to have to work to regain his trust, if it could be done in the first place.

I began.

"My name is Caroline Morris," I said. His eyes widened infinitesimally. "Yes, those Morisses. The same Morrisses who send all their sons to Sina Academy."

"That still doesn't explain why you're here, brat."

"I'm getting there," I assured him. "I know you know my cousins – Frederick, Emile, Porter. And you've probably heard of my father, Lyall, and my uncles, Paul and Samuel. My grandfather was a hero in the Vietnam War, my great-grandfather fought in the Gulf War, my great-great-grandfather stormed the beaches at Normandy on D-Day. You've heard about all the Morris men, but you never hear about the women. You know why?"

He shook his head.

"Because we Morris women are on fucking lockdown from the day we're born. We're taught how to darn socks and sew dresses, but we're not taught how to balance a checkbook or drive a car. We're taught how to cook and clean, but not geometry or classic literature. We're taught how to set a table and how to behave in public – which, by the way, is not to speak unless spoken to because women aren't as fucking smart as men – and how to put on makeup and how to be good mothers and how to play the piano but we hardly know how to read or write or work or do anything a man would do because if we got a taste of independence then the Morris men wouldn't be able to control us." I took a deep breath, exhausted from my tirade. "And I grew up thinking that the whole world functioned like the Morris family, so I grew up wanting to be a boy."

Levi was silent for a long moment, and then:

"And so you came to Sina because you thought that you'd be treated as an inferior if you were a girl."

I nodded.

"I thought that pretending to be a boy was the only way to get people to respect me." I looked down and huffed out a tiny, humorless laugh. "Little did I know that the world is a lot bigger and a lot more accepting than the Morris family."

He sighed. I looked up to see him running his palms over his face. When he looked back at me he looked exhausted.

"I can't go back, Mr. Ackerman," I said, the formality tasting strange on my tongue. "If I go back-"

I felt tears stinging the back of my eyes and I choked. I rubbed my eyes with the bases of my palms.

"If I go back they'll… discipline me. And then I'll be locked in my room for the rest of my life, but this time I'll know what I'm missing."

Levi sighed again.

"Why did you call me Mr. Ackerman?" he asked quietly.

"Because I figured that I'd betrayed your trust badly enough that we were back to square one," I laughed breathlessly. He shook his head.

"I know why you did it now," he said, considerably less angry than before I had spoken. "And I don't blame you."

I closed my eyes and turned away, trying to keep from sobbing.

"Do you still want to come to school here?" he asked softly.

I nodded.

"It's home," I said.

"Then I won't report this."

I whirled around to face him.

"You won't?" I asked incredulously.

"I won't, on the condition that you still come to my office every day after school. And that we still go out to eat on Friday nights. And that you still call me Levi."

That broke me. I doubled over and held my face in my palms, now openly sobbing. I heard the chair creak and felt the bed depress, then the sensation of a hand rubbing soothing circles on my back.

"Thank you," I choked.

"Don't mention it," he said.

Two months passed. I stayed at school for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, a time I knew that Levi hated. I wasn't sure if something had happened to him during those times or if he just didn't like the fact that he was getting older (his birthday was on Christmas, a double reminder of the passing years), but he was always grouchier during the winter months. Maybe he just didn't like the cold.

Either way, he invited me to stay at his house for a while during the Christmas holiday. We realized that neither of us had anyone to celebrate Christmas with, as his family had died when he was small and I couldn't contact mine without an Amber Alert popping up on every TV screen in America, so he offhandedly told me that we might as well celebrate it together. My love-struck little heart fluttered at the thought of spending Christmas with Levi, so I readily (though I hoped I sounded nonchalant) agreed.

We initially agreed that I would stay for three days, but as the time for my visit came closer and closer both of us got a bit impatient. Not to mention that the heat in the dorms cut out, leaving me stranded in the cold. Levi said it didn't matter if I came a few days earlier, so I packed a week's worth of clothes and toiletries and stood in front of the school until he came to get me at four in the morning.

True friendship. Friendship. Nothing more.

I soon learned that he lived in a single-family home in the middle of a suburb, that he had a cat named Petri who was normally very skittish but who took an instant liking to me, that he didn't put up a Christmas tree (I immediately remedied that by finding a twig in his front yard and tying a ribbon around it, dubbing it our "Christmas disappointment"), that he couldn't stand Christmas music (I responded by screaming "Jingle Bells" loud enough that his neighbors came to the door to see what was wrong, only to find him pissed off and me red-faced with laughter on his couch), and that his only real friends were Hanji, Erwin (the dean of students), a guy named Mike whom he had gone to college with, and me. I was both flattered and surprised that he considered me a friend, but then I remembered that he invited me into his closely-guarded home, so I was just flattered.

To pass the time during the day we would watch movies or Netflix shows, I would help him with his lesson plans for the coming semester, we would play card games, we would play with Petri, or we would just talk. I was finally able to be open about my past with him, telling him stories from my childhood that I thought were amusing. They rarely made him so much as smile. I thought that, perhaps, I was making him pity me for growing up in such an oppressive environment.

On Christmas Eve we had a makeshift Christmas dinner. The only thing that we really made was the ham, something that Levi had insisted we have if we were going to have any semblance of a genuine Christmas dinner. The rest of it consisted of canned green beans, canned black-eyed peas, canned cranberry sauce, canned yams, gluten-free rolls that came out of a bag, and half a pecan pie from a bakery that specialized in gluten-free goods. Levi and I sat across from each other at the table while Petri sat on the chair beside me, begging for scraps of ham. Levi told me not to give into the eyes because meat gave the cat gas. Petri had merely meowed at that, and I slipped him a piece of ham because I knew that he slept in Levi's bed and would give him hell.

We cleaned up the table and washed dishes, put away food in Tupperware containers, and let Petri out to take a shit. Once the cat was back inside we decided to put on a movie of my choice ("That's your present, brat," Levi had said), and I chose Love Actually because a) it's one of my favorite movies and b) Levi had already seen me cry, so it wasn't like the tears would be anything new to him. Levi rolled his eyes but pulled it up on Netflix, all the while complaining about how it was going to screw up his recommendations. He lit a fire in his fireplace, turned out the lights, and then made us what appeared to be five bags of microwavable popcorn, lining up three large bowls filled with it on his coffee table and placing the fourth in between us on the couch. He glared at me out of the corner of his eyes, daring me to say anything about his movie food habits.

Near the end of the movie I was, surprisingly, not crying. Partway through the film I had given up on trying to follow the story and, instead, surreptitiously watched the way the firelight and the changing glow of the television screen played off of Levi's face. He stirred and I immediately snapped my eyes back to the screen, the movie now on the scene where Jaimie was asking Aurelia to marry him in poor Portuguese. I blindly reached for another handful of popcorn and felt something brush my hand that definitely wasn't popcorn. Looking down I noticed that it was Levi's hand, and it had frozen upon contact with mine. I immediately grabbed my handful of cold popcorn and retreated, trying to calm my poor little pounding heart and concentrate on the movie.

"Parker?" Levi questioned from his seat beside me on the couch. I steadied my eyes on the screen and responded.

"Yeah?"

He inhaled sharply and fell silent for a moment. Before:

"Caroline?" he whispered, sounding more vulnerable than I had ever heard him.

I slowly turned to look at him. He was looking at me in return, something in his eyes that I had seen many times before but had never been able to place. Without taking his eyes off of me he set the popcorn bowl on the coffee table with the others.

"I'm going to do something," he said evenly. "If you don't like it, tell me to stop."

"O-Okay."

Please do what I think you're going to do.

He reached up a slightly tremulous hand (holy shit, he was shaking and I was shaking) and ran his thumb along my cheekbone. I immediately broke out into chills as a tremor went down my spine. His eyes flitted down to my mouth several times and I felt like screaming, but I was completely frozen. He leaned closer, and closer, and closer, but he was taking so much time that I felt like just grabbing him but I was still fucking frozen –

And then his lips were on mine and I was melting, winding my arms around his neck and pressing myself as close to him as possible. He broke away and I wanted to cry, but he just grabbed the remote and turned off the TV before setting the remote back on the coffee table and proceeding to kiss me again, just as gently and just as slowly and I never wanted it to end.

He pulled away gently and rested his forehead against mine, breathing softly but heavily.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Seventeen," I answered honestly.

"And you've never done-"

"Any of it. I've never…"

His face changed into something unreadable before softening again.

"Fuck it," he said before leaning in to kiss me again, harder this time. He swiped his tongue across my lower lip and I felt myself fall just a little bit harder for him.

The next morning I awoke to find myself wrapped up in Levi's arms in his bed, totally naked and not at all ashamed. I smiled when I saw his face, completely lax and peaceful in sleep. I brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead and he scrunched his eyes, slowly waking up and evidently not wanting to. Once his eyes opened and focused, he brought a hand up and traced a kiss mark on my neck. I shivered and he smirked slightly. The smirk died down and he spoke with a voice still hoarse from sleep.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked.

"Only for a little bit," I said. "Then it was all fine."

"Fine?" he scoffed jokingly.

"I'm sure you could do better," I responded with a wry smile on my face.

He rolled over and straddled me, his eyes flashing with desire and mine starting to get there. He leaned down and his face disappeared beside my head; I could feel his hot breath fan against my ear as he whispered into it.

"Then allow me another attempt."

It was difficult to leave his house when I had gotten so comfortable there. Petri was utterly confused when he saw my suitcase in the hallway, and he let out loud and long meows of protest when I walked out the door.

Once school was back in session we were bombarded with homework and papers and other various projects, so much so that I hardly had time to come into Levi's office. Neither of us were particularly pleased with that, but it was probably for the best – it wasn't healthy for me to spend every waking minute with him, even if I really wanted to. I did spend spring break at his house, however, something for which both his cat and I were immensely grateful.

When May first rolled around I was jittering with excitement. Graduation was in less than two weeks and I would be turning eighteen shortly thereafter, meaning that Levi's and my… activities would be totally legal. I wasn't only excited about my new relationship status; once I turned eighteen I would be able to contact my family without the fear of being forced back into their custody. Once I was eighteen I would be free.

My jitters weren't all in excitement, however. Once I had graduated I would have to go through the tedious process of explaining my gender situation to Sina and to the university I hoped to attend, not to mention to my school friends. I wondered how they would take the news. Would they be in awe that I had hid it so well and for so long? Would they be furious that I had hidden something so basic from them? Would they not care, stating that I was still the same person just with a vagina? I would have to wait and see.

I continued to ace my classes, earning me the salutatorian slot of the senior class, right behind Armin. I continued to spend time with Levi and with my school friends. I continued to do everything just as I had been doing it for the past several months.

Until the accident.

"Parker!" someone called. Sounds were blurry and muffled, and I couldn't open my eyes until someone propped my eyelids open with their fingers. I was finally able to blink. Once the fog cleared from my vision I saw that the person calling me was Eren.

"Parker!"

"What?" I croaked. My head was positively throbbing and I couldn't feel my legs. What was going on? I prayed I wasn't paralyzed. "What happened?"

Armin suddenly crowded his way into my field of vision.

"What is the year?" he asked gently, though his eyes were wide with worry.

"The… the year?" I was so sleepy. I just wanted to sleep. "I don't know."

"He has a concussion," Armin said to Eren. "We need to get him to a hospital."

"No," I murmured, straining to keep my eyes open. "No hospitals."

"He's delirious," Eren said. He tried to pick me up off the ground, but I protested.

"I want Levi," I said. "Get Levi."

"Who is Levi?" Eren asked. "Do we know a Levi?"

"I think he means Mr. Ackerman," said Armin.

"I'll go get him," Eren said, quickly standing up and racing away to find Levi. Armin stayed behind and began to mop up the blood from my head.

"What happened?" I asked again.

"You got hit by a car," he said.

I wanted to run my hands over my face, but I couldn't move my arms.

Please don't let me be paralyzed.

Within minutes both Levi and Eren were galloping into my sight. Levi immediately knelt down beside me, pushing Armin out of the way.

"Are you okay?" he asked stupidly, his voice cracking. "Oh my god. Oh my god."

"I can't go to a hospital," I said. "They'll see and they'll send me back."

"You have to go to a hospital, Ca- Parker. You have to."

"What'll they see?" Eren asked concernedly. Levi hushed him and told him it wasn't his business.

"I'm taking you to Rose," Levi said, referring to the nearest hospital. He scooped my protesting self into his arms and placed a light kiss on my bloodied forehead, much to my classmates' surprise.

"You shouldn't have done that," I said.

"I couldn't help it," he responded.

I wasn't paralyzed, but what happened next seemed to be even worse.

I was found out.

The doctors, obviously, figured out the truth and were obligated to report it, meaning that Erwin, the dean of students, found out and came to talk to me. He took up the uncomfortable vinyl chair beside my bed.

Erwin sighed.

"Why did you infiltrate our academy?" he asked.

Our academy. Not yours.

"I didn't infiltrate it," I snapped without meaning to. "Sorry, sir. I-"

"It's fine…" he trailed. "I'm going to assume that your real name isn't Parker."

I shook my aching head.

"My name is Caroline Morris."

He stayed silent for several minutes, coming up with the right words to say to me. Then:

"I know your family," he said. I rolled my head over to look at him. "They've been looking for you for a long time, Caroline."

"Fuck them," I said. "They can shove that 'looking for you' up their ass."

"Caroline, your family loves you very much-"

"If you know my family so well then you know what they're like. You know how they treat women."

He looked at me confusedly.

"The Morris women are very reserved, but that's their nature," he said.

"You're wrong," I swallowed. "I don't think you know how many times my father told me that I wasn't as good as my cousins. That I wasn't as smart or as important."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a girl and they're boys."

The realization seemed to hit Erwin in the gut, his eyes widening.

"Ever wonder why you never hear Morris women speak?" I asked quietly. "It's because we're not allowed to speak to anyone unless a man gives us permission, and that implies that men have some sort of power over us. Which, in the Morris family, they do. If we 'misbehave' we get beaten, no matter how old we are. I once watched my cousin slap his own mother because she spoke out of turn, and she was so broken down by that point that she apologized. To him."

"So you ran away to get away from the misogyny of your family," Erwin said. "But why Sina? Why didn't you go to a coed or girls' school?"

"You'll have to remember that I'd hardly left the estate in all my thirteen years of life before I ran away. I thought that everyone thought the way my family did, that men were somehow superior to women. So if I were to go anywhere as a girl I would get treated the same way and running away would have been completely pointless. And Sina was really the only school I knew about, since women aren't supposed to have any education or even know that there are girls that get educations."

Erwin ducked his head and breathed deeply.

"I have to call your parents."

"You mean my father," I snorted. "Women aren't allowed to talk on the phone, lest we be 'infected with outside ideas.'"

He winced, obviously struggling between his conscience and his legal obligation as an educator.

"Call him," I said. "I don't care anymore. It's not like I'd be allowed back in Sina anyway."

"I've been pushing for Sina to be coed for several years now."

That got my attention.

"Really?" I asked. He nodded.

"The school board is made up of old men, though, hell-bent on keeping tradition. But I think your stunt might be able to convince them to reconsider."

"How so?"

"Their main logical objection to letting girls into Sina is that they think they would be too weak to handle the rigorous training that the academy requires. But you," he gestured to me, "You have obviously proved them wrong. You're very clearly female and almost at the top of the class."

"In academics," I reminded him. "I'm mediocre at all the physical stuff."

"That's not what Coach Shadis has told me."

"Shadis talks about me?"

"He's brought you up once or twice, both times to offer you an award. Reiner Braun just seems to slightly outshine you every time."

"Well, then. That's a surprise."

Erwin chuckled at me and ran a hand through his hair.

"I'll bring this up at the next board meeting. As for your family situation… when do you turn eighteen?"

A spark of hope lit up in me.

"In three days, sir," I said honestly.

"I wouldn't be opposed to postponing my phone call."

I broke down, happy tears sliding down my face faster than I could bring my hand up to wipe them away.

"Thank you so much," I choked. "Thank you."

"It's my pleasure to have you at Sina, Caroline. You're one of the best and the brightest. Don't forget that."

"Thank you."

Erwin's phone buzzed in his pocket. He fished it out of his pants and opened it, reading the message that was displayed on the screen. Looking up:

"That was Levi – Mr. Ackerman. He says your friends want to see you."

"That would be great."

He got up and strode to the door. The moment the door opened Eren was racing inside to hug me. I eagerly returned my friend's hug, chuckling at his enthusiasm.

"Whoa there, buddy," I choked out, still trying to hide the fact that I was crying. It obviously didn't work, as he pulled back and shoved a tissue box in my face.

"What's going on?" Eren asked. "Why are you crying?"

"Because Sina might become coed," I said, rubbing violently at my eyes with a tissue. The rest of my friends filed into the room: Armin, then Jean, then Marco, then Connie, then Reiner, then Berthold. They all scattered around the room, dragging chairs in from the hallway or sitting at the foot of my bed.

Eren was still confused.

"And you're happy because there would be more girls to date?" he asked.

"Wait, what's going on, Jaeger?" Jean questioned.

"Sina might be becoming coed," he answered without the venom he usually held in his responses to the boy. My friends cheered, and Connie pumped a fist.

"Sasha's been dying to come to Sina! We could go to school together!" Connie, the only junior in the group, exclaimed. I smiled and bit back a laugh of my own.

After the excitement died down Eren looked back at me. He had taken up the seat which Erwin had occupied. He opened his mouth to speak, but Armin beat him to it.

"So why are you crying?" he asked.

"Because it means that I might not get kicked out of school. I might actually get to graduate," I answered. Armin's eyes widened. He got it, but none of the others seemed to.

"What are you talking about, Parker?" Jean scoffed. "I don't care if you have a concussion. You need to start making sense."

Armin opened his mouth.

"Armin," I interrupted him. "I want to explain it before you blurt it out." He nodded, still dumbstruck.

"Okay, what does Arlert know that I don't?" Reiner asked loudly, impatiently. I bit back a smile. What would I have done all these years without these guys?

What would I do if they left?

I took a deep breath and steadied myself by looking at Armin. He nodded encouragingly, and I knew that at least one person wouldn't abandon me.

I pulled the collar of my hospital gown to the side to reveal the strap of my binder.

"What does an undershirt have to do with anything?" Jean asked.

"It's not an undershirt, guys," I said. "It's a breast binder."

Marco, Reiner, Berthold, and Jean fell silent in understanding, eyes wide open in shock. Eren and Connie were still clueless.

"Okay…" Connie trailed. "Parker, why-"

"My name isn't Parker," I said.

"Then what is it?"

I swallowed.

"Caroline."

Even people as obtuse as Eren and Connie could understand what I meant by that. Eren's jaw might as well have hit the floor. Everyone was silent.

Jean was the first to break it.

"You're a fucking girl!?" he exclaimed angrily. "You-"

"And I can still kick your ass in boxing, Kirstein!"

"That was one time!"

Marco burst out into laughter, followed by Armin and Eren, and then everyone but Jean.

"What is so funny?" Jean snapped. "Did you guys know this?"

"N-No," wheezed Connie, who was holding his stomach and bracing himself against the plastic foot of the bed. "No idea."

"Why would you pretend to be a guy for four years, you asshole?"

I tried to talk but all that came out was wheezing laughter. I was so caught up in the amusement of my friends that it was hard to breathe.

Eventually we all calmed down, only punctuating a comfortable silence with short resurgences of laughter. After that I was able to explain who I was, why I had run away from home, and why I had pretended to be a boy. Once I was finished Armin was the first to speak.

"I don't know about the rest of us, but I'm totally fine with you being a girl," he said.

"Same," said Eren.

"Here, here," said Reiner. Everyone echoed but Jean, who was still sulking. It took all I had not to laugh at him.

"At least it makes the crush Jean has on you a little less gay," Marco said. I thought I could detect the tiniest bit of disappointment in his voice.

"Jean does not have a crush on me, Marco," I laughed knowingly. "Believe me. I know exactly who he's been falling all over himself for, and it's not me."

"Do tell," Reiner prodded evilly. Jean was frantically trying to stop me from saying anything, but it was too late.

"Marco."

"Yeah?" he asked.

"No, I mean that's who he's in love with. It's Marco."

Jean was flaming red now, from his neck to his ears. Marco was starting to get there, but a huge, glorious smile was breaking out onto his face.

"Jean, is that true?" Marco asked him. Jean gave a shy nod of confirmation and then his freckled best friend was on him, kissing him senseless. The entire room cheered, me being the loudest.

"Fucking finally!" I laughed. "I've been shipping it for years!"

Jean and Marco left shortly after that, presumably to consummate the love and lust they'd felt towards each other for years. We all let out scandalized little noises as they left, and Jean flipped us the bird with the hand that wasn't wrapped up in Marco's.

Eventually those of us remaining turned on the television, making fun of the bad horror movie that was on channel seven. I was reminded of Christmas Eve when Levi and I had watched Love Actually, though now there was less silence and less popcorn. I was perfectly content in the moment, especially when I knew that Levi would come to visit me soon.

We heard a cough from the doorway and swiveled around to see a young nurse standing there, clipboard in hand.

"Miss Morris?" she asked. I nodded.

"Yes?"

"That's going to take some getting used to," Reiner mumbled.

"You have a couple of visitors," the nurse said.

"Who are they?"

"Your father and mother."

My friends fell silent and I swallowed, looking around at all their concerned faces.

"How did they find me?" I asked.

"As a hospital we're obligated to report missing children," she said apologetically. "Since you're still seventeen we had to make the call."

I nodded.

"Let them in," I said. "I can handle this."

"I'm not leaving," said Reiner.

"Neither am I," said Connie. The sentiment was echoed by all my friends, and I smiled to myself.

"That's probably going to be a good thing," I said.

They all agreed and I told the nurse to fetch my parents. I clenched my fist beside me just in case I needed to strike quickly.

The door opened and before I could even open my mouth someone was on me, wrapping their arms around me in an almost bone-crushing hug. I buried my face into the person's hair and inhaled, smelling the aroma of home-made shampoo.

"Mom," I choked, hugging her back. She was sobbing openly and violently, telling me how much she had missed me and chastising me for leaving and telling me how they had been looking all over for me. She finally pulled back and ran a hand through my cropped hair.

"Why is your hair so short?" she asked with a chuckle. "Young ladies-"

"They didn't tell you, did they?" I smiled.

"No, they didn't."

I looked around my mother's shoulder to see my father standing irately in the doorway. I swallowed.

"Noreen, get out of the way," he commanded. My mother looked fearfully between the two of us, torn between protecting her child and obeying her husband. Eventually her "intrinsically female" duty to her husband won out and she stepped aside deferentially, much to my friends' horror.

I gazed back at my father.

"How dare you," he growled. "How dare you run away from us? After all we'd given you-"

He cut himself off, trying to calm himself. It obviously didn't work.

"We'd given you a roof over your head, food to eat, water to drink, toys to play with, friends to talk with, we gave you an education: your mother taught you how to sew, how to cook, how to clean, how to take care of children… We gave you everything a woman needs in life!"

My friends gasped. My father, being the sexist prick he was, assumed that they were naturally on his side because they were male.

"Exactly!" he exclaimed. "What more could you have possibly wanted?"

He glared at me, and I glared back with a hardness and an intensity that I had lacked four years earlier. I had changed since he had known me, and like hell I was going to let him think that he had won me over this time.

"Dad," I said calmly, "with all due respect, fuck you."

His eyes widened to the size of dinner plates and I knew I was in for it. I didn't regret it.

"Excuse you, young lady? Who taught you those words?" he asked, giving me a chance to back down. I didn't take it.

"Fuck you and your sense of male entitlement," I spat. "Fuck your patriarchy and fuck your completely unwarranted sense of superiority. I don't care what you thought or think I need or needed. What I need right now are a real education – the kind of education that you think only boys are entitled to – and actual friends who won't patronize me for being born with a vagina and a family that isn't going to try to marry me off to someone who is exactly like my fucking father."

The sound of skin-on-skin, and then my cheek was on fire.

He had hit me.

"You're coming with me, you self-righteous bitch! I'll instill some respect into you!" he hissed, grabbing my wrist and tugging me from my bed. My head swam from my concussion and I fell to the ground.

And then someone was tugging me up by my underarms and pulling me into a firm chest. Inhaling I could smell drugstore cologne and warm printer paper and washed hair.

Levi.

I wrapped my arms around him and felt him lift me back onto the hospital bed and cover me with the sheets. Letting my arms drop from his neck, I opened my eyes and saw my friends with their jaws hitting the ground, and then Levi standing in front of my father with his fists clenched beside him.

"I don't care if you are biologically related to Caroline or not," Levi said evenly. "You do not deserve to be called her father."

"Levi Ackerman," my father said. "You were my nephew's favorite teacher. I didn't expect you to be one of those men."

"What kind of man do you mean, Mr. Morris?"

"The ones who are so emasculated that they would give to women the same rights given to men."

I clenched the sheets in my hands but couldn't say anything. My head was throbbing.

"I would like to know why you think masculinity is so important in the first place," Levi said, his fists shaking but his voice still even.

"It is God-given. That is why it is so important," my father scoffed.

"I see," Levi said. "I think you need to leave, sir."

"I'm not leaving without my daughter."

"Your daughter has a very severe concussion and needs to stay in the hospital for a few days, sir."

"By that time she'll be eighteen!" my father exclaimed. "If I don't bring her back now then she'll never come back!"

"Then leave," I finally managed to say. "I don't want to go back."

"What does it matter what some stupid woman wants?" he barked.

"You should rethink what you mean by 'stupid woman,' sir," Levi growled, advancing on my father. I wanted to tell him to stop, that he wasn't worth it, but I couldn't get my voice to work again. "Caroline is the current salutatorian of her senior class at Sina Academy."

"Don't make me laugh! Sina is an all-male institution."

"Which only proves how intelligent she is."

"What do you mean?"

"She has been almost flawlessly impersonating a male for the past four years."

Both my parents were silent.

"Not only has Caroline been pretending to be male," Levi continued, "but she has made top marks in all of her classes with little to no tutoring. She is one of the most intelligent people I have ever come across, able to solve complex logic puzzles and able to banter with some of the brightest minds of the age. Not only that, but she was able to rise above the kind of brainwashing you prescribe in your family, a feat which, obviously, even men such as yourself were unable to accomplish. Now tell me, sir. Is Caroline Morris really stupid, or are you merely throwing around that word to convince yourself that you have some intrinsic authority over women?"

My father was positively red. Just then a hospital security guard burst into the room.

"I received a report of physical violence against a patient," he said. My friends all pointed to my father. "I'm afraid that you're going to have to come with me, sir."

"I'm not leaving this place without my daughter!" my father raged. No longer was I angry that I had come from such a family; no, now I was simply embarrassed as I watched the security guard drag my father from my room, leaving my mother to stand dumbstruck beside my bed.

"Thank you, Levi," I managed to say through the throbbing in my head.

He looked down at me softly, taking one of my hands in his own and placing a gently kiss on my forehead.

"Don't mention it," he said.

"Okay." Eren said, breaking the hush that had suddenly fallen over the room. "Parker, or Caroline, your dad's a huge dick."

The room erupted into a fit of crazed laughter; even my mother chuckled along, giving me hope that she might leave my father. I was given even more hope when she expressed her wish to divorce him.

"Do it," I said immediately. "Leave him. I can teach you how to work."

"We'll all help," my friends said, and I felt like crying. My friends were willing to help my mother, a woman whom they had never met, leave an abusive relationship. I really was lucky to have them.

When Erwin brought me up in the next faculty meeting, an emergency meeting called the day after I was admitted into the hospital, the school board no longer had any logical reason to prohibit girls from attending Sina. With that, Sina was officially coed and I was officially allowed to graduate. Eren wheeled me across the stage to get my diploma, as I was still too disoriented to walk.

The day of my eighteenth birthday Levi asked me to move in with him. I readily agreed and kissed him in front of all my friends. Jean fell to the ground when he saw, dragging Marco down with him (they had been holding hands). When asked how long we had been dating I simply flipped them all the bird. They laughed and dropped the topic.

The college I wanted to attend – Maria University, one of the best universities in the state and, thankfully, still in Stohess – was quite receptive to my predicament. After explaining what I had done and why I had done it, I was permitted to attend the university in the fall on the condition that I fill out all my paperwork again and resubmit it by the first day of classes.

Graduating high school, moving in with my boyfriend, starting college – all of these things had filled me to the brim with joy. But one thing that I had hoped would happed hadn't quite yet. My mother had yet to leave my father.

That was what brought Levi and me to Shiganshina, a small town about an hour out of Stohess. My mother had surreptitiously called me on the phone and told me that she still wanted to divorce my father but simply didn't know how, so Levi had offered to take me to my old home to pick her up and take her to a lawyer. Levi was amazed at the estate as he drove through the open gate, all wispy trees and green grass and white picket fences and a huge house at the end of the mile-long driveway. He pulled into the little area designated for guest parking in front of the house and parked the car, sitting back in his seat to admire the whitewashed beauty of my old house.

"It's beautiful," he said. "I wouldn't mind living here."

"It's a nice place," I agreed. "The people are pretty shitty, though."

We got out of the car and climbed the steps to the porch. Levi almost knocked on the door, but I stopped him and rang the doorbell instead. Within seconds the door opened to reveal my father's smiling face.

"Hello-" he began. When his brain finally processed the image of Levi and I standing on his front porch he scowled menacingly, threateningly.

"What do you want now?" he growled.

"I'm here to see Mom," I said coolly.

"You can't see her. I forbid it."

"Geoffrey-" my mother's voice came from inside the house.

"No, Noreen! I won't allow you to see them!"

Out of patience, I rolled my eyes and brushed past Levi to stand directly in front of my father in all my thick-sweatered, blue-jeaned, short-haired glory.

And then I punched him hard in the nose.

He didn't even have time to react. My mother bolted out of the door and raced to the car, Levi and me not far behind. My father was still doubled over in the doorway looking fumingly after us.

"Come back here, Noreen!" he commanded. "Don't you dare go with those pieces of-"

"You can't control me anymore, Geoffrey!" my mother yelled back before getting in the back seat of Levi's car. Levi and I quickly followed suit and my boyfriend put the car in reverse, backing out of the parking space and then going forward down the driveway.

Once we were safely out of the gate and off of the Morris estate for what would, hopefully, be the last time, my mother let out a long breath before turning to me.

"Where did you learn how to punch like that?" she asked.

"I think you forget that I went to military school," I said.

She laughed in jubilation, finally out from under my father's thumb, and I laughed along with her.

I was eighteen, I was going to college, my mother was free from an abusive relationship, and I couldn't have been happier. Even Levi was smiling as we drove down the highway towards Stohess, towards home.