It was weird having feelings for Ashley. I'd never been attracted to another girl before. Yes, I knew she was transgender, but so was I. We had still almost kissed. We had almost kissed twice. I was glad that everything had been reset because I wouldn't have to explain anything. I didn't want the whole school to know that I was transgender, even though it was only like 20 people. Of course, the staff of the ship would also find out and that adds probably another 10 and that's not including any passengers that happen to be present. I was fine with the way that things were now. I didn't want things to change.

This week the ship was going to be going to Hong Kong. I wasn't sure what to expect from it. I had never been to China before. I knew certain countries had bigoted laws against gay and transgender people, but I didn't think we would be going to any of those countries. This was kind of a diplomatic move and I was sure they wouldn't want any sort of international incident from anything happening to us. We would probably also be staying out of the Middle East, not only because of terrorism, but also due to lack of water for cruising.

As for China, I wasn't sure what kind of laws they had. I would need to refill my prescription soon. Maybe I could get my doctor from Kettlepod to mail them to me. Maybe I could just tell my parents. There was a parents' weekend coming up pretty soon, maybe that would be a good time to tell them. Of course, if I did it that, they would probably want something to change at the school and I still didn't want things to change. I had an idea. I would tell them on my 16th birthday. I walked into the room to see Ashley at her computer. There was a woman on the screen.

"That's my roommate Bailey." She explained. She then looked at me. "Can I tell her?"

"Tell me what?" The woman asked. I assumed that she was Ashley and Cody's mother. I began to think to myself. There was no way that she could possibly tell my parents since they were very far away from each other. There were some other people that I didn't want to know though. I wasn't sure why I was doing it.

"I'm transgender." I declared with my regular voice. I also took my hat off. "My parents don't know and most people at school don't know. I'm telling you because I'm expecting you to keep this a secret."

"And before you say anything, I am like this because of Bailey. Not only did she convince me to pursue my femininity but knowing her helped me remember what I was like when I was younger." Ashley explained. I felt like she was giving me too much credit. I wasn't a role model or anything since I wasn't even out myself.

"You know this is something that you should probably tell Maddie about." Her mom replied.

"Me or her?" Ashley asked. I assumed that she meant Ashley because I didn't know Maddie and I really didn't want her to know about me. True, there probably wasn't any harm in her knowing, but I wanted to keep the number of people who knew about me to a minimum.

"You." The woman replied. "So how is school going?"

"It's actually going really well." Ashley answered. I was impressed that she had used the right word there. "Bailey's been helping me with my homework."

"You must be some kind of miracle worker." Mrs. Martin told me. Was Ashley doing her homework not something that happened often?

"I'm hanging up now." Ashley declared before she closed the window. You know that term had become outdated since most phones and computers didn't need to be hung to end a call. I should probably get out more because I am such a nerd.

"So, is there anything you want to do in Hong Kong?" I asked.

"I kind of wanted to see if there is anywhere that I can get a kimono." She responded. I sighed. "What?"

"Ashley, kimonos are Japanese. There may be somewhere you can get one but the Chinese dress is called a cheongsam." I explained. At least she knew that kimonos were Asian and she hadn't actually said that to a Chinese person. "Were there any sights that you wanted to see?"

"I don't really know a lot of stuff that's in China, other than the wall." She admitted. "And I know that we're kind of far from there."

She then took out her phone and I saw the widest smile on her face. She had a really nice smile.

"Ooh, we can go to Hong Kong Disneyland." She replied.

"Ashley's there's nothing Chinese about Disneyland." I countered.

"How do you know? You've never been there before." She challenged. "I want this to be something that we can do together, but I'm still going to go whether you do or not."

"I've never actually been to anything Disney before." I declared.

"Then you need to go. As a matter of fact, you need to go as a girl. I have some clothes that you can wear." She declared. I wanted to say no, but I couldn't because she looked so happy.

We decided that it would be best to change in the bathroom on the cafe to avoid anyone seeing me come out of the room. I ended up in a white sweater with what appeared to be braids in the sleeves and jean shorts. Ashley wore a black jumper and dark blue jeans. I had to admit that I was looking forward to it, not only because I had never been to Disneyland before but also because I wanted to spend the day with Ashley. Disneyland would be a good place for a first kiss, but I wasn't expecting that to happen.

One thing I couldn't help but notice was that none of the other students seemed to want to go Disneyland. Maybe it was because they thought that it wasn't Chinese enough. It did basically mean that I would have a chance to be myself for a change. I liked that I could be out even if it was only for a short period of time.

When we got there, it looked kind of like I expected it to look. There was a Chinese feel but also a Disney feel as well. I saw a woman dressed as Cinderella. I honestly expected to see Mulan, but I then figured that maybe China wasn't big on the movie. It did seem like it was pretty inaccurate. Mulan was still probably my favorite princess despite the fact that I was white.

"So, is this the happiest place on Earth or what?" Ashley asked.

"I don't know if I could call it the happiest place on Earth." I remarked. I couldn't think of an actual happier place, but I imagine that it would be a place with kittens and candy and probably something for the people who are allergic to those things. "Are you sure that you're okay paying for this?"

"Yes, my dad gave me a credit card so I could see all of the exciting places around the world." She explained. "We should take some pictures."

"Ashley, I'm not comfortable with you putting pictures of me on the internet or really even taking them because I don't want other people to see them." I responded. She frowned. "I do have something to tell you. I decided on a date when I'm going to tell my parents."

"When is that and don't say at a later date?" She told me.

"I'm going to tell them on my 16th birthday which is November 12th." I answered.

"Well mine and Cody's birthday is September 16th." She stated. That was coming up soon. I would need to remember to get her something. "But enough of the chit chat. We need to get in line for one of the rides."

We ended up going to the Tomorrowland section of the park. I was a bit surprised that it was so similar to the US Disneyland, but I supposed it was easier to design that way. There was still some cultural things that. I was pretty sure that they had something about the true story of Mulan in there somewhere.

There was one point in the day where she held my hand and it was one of the best feelings in the world. I knew we weren't together and she only thought of me as a friend, but it was still great. What had happened at the dance had been a perfect storm of me getting everything right and even manipulating some things. There was no way I could get her to like me in the real world. She could have any girl that she wanted, so why would she pick me?

"Was there anything that you wanted for your birthday?" I questioned.

"I can't really think of much." She admitted. "I wouldn't mind a new game system but I doubt you could afford that. Maybe some clothes would be okay or makeup. You know I never thought that I would say that I want clothes for my birthday."

"Well what you're going through can be a bit confusing." I explained. "You're lucky that people with buy you clothes and they'll be clothes that you actually want to wear. I won't be getting any of that."

"I bet your sister will get you something and I will as well." She told me. "It's just too bad that I can't meet your sister."

"Well she's kind of busy with school. I know that she wanted to travel the world, but she probably won't get the chance to do that until she gets her degree." I explained.

"Just what is she studying?" Ashley asked. It was a little bit hard to explain.

"She's studying International Law. She wants to be a lawyer but she wants to be able to work anywhere." I remarked. "It's kind of confusing."

"It sounds like the perfect job to travel the world." She commented. "But would just be traveling around and asking people if they want to be a lawyer or something?"

"I don't know if she's completely figured that part out yet." I admitted. "How about we go get some food."

Once we were in the café, we finally got something that was Chinese: food. They did have forks for people that were lazy and not into other cultures, but I wanted Ashley and I to eat with chopsticks. It was a little cute because she was struggling at first. I had to teach her how to hold them while I giggled.

"So, are you glad that you came here?" She asked me.

"Yeah, I am." I replied.

While we were still there, we ended up going somewhere where I was able to get my hair braided. I thought about going for a Chinese hairstyle but I wasn't sure if that would be offensive or not. I then put a pair of Mickey ears on.

"You have to let me take at least one picture of you." Ashley begged. "I swear I won't put it on Facebook or anything like that."

"I guess you can take one picture." I replied. At that point, she took out her iPhone and snapped a picture of me. Luckily, I was able to get ready in time. It was the first time that I had seen a picture of myself. I liked the way that I looked. It was too bad that I couldn't look like that all of the time, but that was how it was going to be until I was finally ready to come out as transgender. Everything would change then and I wasn't sure if I could handle it in the same way that Ashley did.

As we were leaving the park, I noticed that we still had some time before we needed to get back on the ship.

"Did you still want to go somewhere to try on a cheongsam?" I asked.

"Will you do it with me?" She inquired.

"I guess I should if we did the chopstick and the food thing." I agreed. You know even though I occasionally liked to wear dresses, I still thought of myself as a tomboy. Apparently, it was possible to be both a tomboy and transgender. I liked playing sports and watching sports and I also liked video games.

We went to a boutique to try on our garments. I had a black one and Ashley had a green one. It was a bit tighter than I was expecting, but China had a stricter standard of beauty. I was pretty sure most countries did because they had lower obesity rates than the United States. For everything that was great about it, my country had a lot of flaws. That wasn't to say that the other countries were without flaws, but I wanted to get to know other countries before coming back to my own.

"You look amazing." Ashley told me. "You know I may need to lose a few pounds because this is kind of tight."

"You don't need to lose any weight, at least no more than ten pounds and that should be gradual." I explained. "There's the fact that the average Chinese is about 5'2" so they don't really make them for taller women."

From there we headed back to the ship. I hoped that I had left some sort of impact on her. She was beautiful despite not filling out her clothes all of the way. She looked kind of like a model in that regard.

When we got back on the ship, I found a person that I wasn't expecting to see. I couldn't exactly speak when I saw them.

"Hi." They said.

So Bailey and Ashley went to Disneyland and they had a good time. Also who is the mysterious person? Please don't forget to review.